Feral
by Haleine Delail
Summary: 1852, a London convent has an unsolvable problem and they believe the Doctor is their last hope. But what he finds are shades of his past that cast shadows on the present and future. Can he save the world without having to give up someone he loves?
1. Chapter 1

**THIS STORY ATTEMPTS TO PICK UP WHERE "SHADES OF BLUE" LEFT OFF - YOU MAY NOTICE THAT THE LAST PARAGRAPH OF "SHADES" IS THE FIRST PARAGRAPH HERE. THIS IS SIMPLY TO ESTABLISH THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARTHA AND THE DOCTOR WITHOUT HAVING TO GO THROUGH ALL THE ANGSTY STUFF. HOWEVER, THIS STORY HAS REALLY NOTHING TO DO WITH "SHADES OF BLUE," AND WHILE I WOULD LOVE IF YOU READ THE PREVIOUS STORY, IT IS NOT AT ALL NECESSARY TO DO SO!**

**THIS STORY REQUIRES A BIT OF A CONTINUITY RE-WRITE (DO THEY CALL THA RETCON?), BUT IF I TOLD YOU WHERE OR HOW OR WHY, IT WOULDN'T BE SPORTING. SUFFICE IT TO SAY THAT AT SOME POINT IN THE STORY, YOU'LL HEAR A SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT TELLING OF THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM, AND IT HAS SOME PRETTY DIRE CONSEQUENCES. IF STUFF LIKE THAT BOTHERS YOU, THEN HIT THE 'BACK' BUTTON ON YOUR BROWSER NOW!**

**LET'S BE OFF AND ENJOY!**

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* * *

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**feral: \ˈfir-əl, ˈfer-; ˈfe-rəl\**

**1: of, relating to, or suggestive of a wild beast 2 a: not domesticated or cultivated; wild**

* * *

ONE

The Doctor was suspended in the dark above the Earth. A new world lay waiting for him, her contours defined beneath a tan bedsheet. He soon shrouded himself in the dim, careless light and in that same tan bedsheet. He lost himself in her, and basked in his own newfound freedom.

Time had so much meaning in the TARDIS, and so little. He could not, he could never, calculate the length and breadth of his loneliness, and now, he reckoned, it mattered little. What mattered was this love, this moment, today. When he'd first made love to Martha a few days ago, it had truly been _ages_. Generations and regenerations had come and gone since last he had exerted his energies in such a full-bodied sense, and it had felt not just good, not just like a release, but like a lifeline. They had been driven together, quite literally, by an unseen force, but once ignited, they'd lost all control and needed no further urging. They grasped at each other as though dying of thirst in the desert. Before, he'd been oblivious to her feelings (and, if he was honest, his own), and it had taken a third party to show them the life and love they could make together.

And so they tangled the sheets once more, for the first time since fully acknowledging their mutual feelings. Those hours were wordless but not silent, urgent but never hurried. They wanted to enjoy each other, preface the rest of their lives with this bubble of perfection.

At long last, their bodies lay in stasis, calming. She rested her head on his shoulder near his ear. Between protracted exhalations, Martha whispered, "That was _perfect_."

"_You_ were perfect," he whispered back. He smiled slightly and turned his head to give her a soft kiss. A long moment passed, and he added, "Perfect, but exhausting. I'm famished now."

"I am, too," she admitted.

"Shall we get up and have a _perfect_ meal of some sort?"

"Can't we just call room service?" she joked, leaning over for another kiss, this one not-so-soft. His arms curled around her once more and for a beautiful interval, all too short, it felt as though their venturing out of bed might have to wait yet more hours.

And then a giant jolt ripped them from the moment. The TARDIS was moving at warp speed, and not smoothly. It jostled them to the left, then the right, then to the left again and tossed them out of bed and onto the floor.

Once the ground beneath them was stable, they got to their feet and scrambled to find their clothes. As they did, the Doctor cried out, "What the hell was that, eh?" He seemed to be scolding the TARDIS, but he received no answer.

Well, if this romp of theirs was to be the preface to their new life together, Martha supposed that being interrupted by some whiplash-inducing adventure was as appropriate a finish as any. This was, after all, life with the Doctor, and that meant very little calm.

She followed him out of the bedroom and down the corridor into the console room. The TARDIS seemed to be panting when they arrived, and rather than screaming at it as he had before, he approached the light field and stroked it. He said nothing, but Martha knew that he was, nonetheless, communicating with it.

"It's homed in on something," he said. "It's brought us where it feels we are needed."

"Where's that?" she asked.

"Don't know," he told her. "Only one way to find out."

They exited the TARDIS together and looked about. Martha could see the Tower of London, which answered the question of _where_, but that still left the _when_ up in the air. Styles of dress suggested the 19th century, but she waited for the Doctor to say more.

They wandered forward down the street cautiously. "Do you see anything out-of-place?" asked Martha.

"Not yet," he told her. "But it's still early. We need to find out what year it is."

He pulled her into a tavern nearby. The Voyager's Repose was most likely an inn as well, or so the name suggested, and therefore promised a motley assortment of interesting personalities.

The pair of them caught eyes as they entered. "Hello everyone," the Doctor greeted with convivial friendliness. This was met with _hello _muttered from all sides. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Martha. Don't mind us – just in for a bit of grub. What's on the menu today?"

"Well, the usual gruel, or some brown bread. Or stew – we got some beef at a very good price, stewed it with turnips."

"We'll have two of those, thanks," the Doctor told him. "And some wine, if you have it."

"Sure thing, Doctor," the barman said. "You understand of course that the price includes the meal and a room for the night." He eyed Martha with concern. "I'll assume the lovely dark lady is your wife? I've got a reputable establishment, Doctor, you understand."

"Yes, yes, of course. How much do we owe?" the Doctor asked, evading the question.

The barman charged him a surprisingly small amount of money. "That's all, are you certain?" asked the Doctor.

"It's a special dispensation today, sir," the barman said with happy gusto. "In honour of Her Majesty."

"In honour of Her Majesty, you say?"

"Yes, sir," the man said, sounding a bit surprised. "It's the twentieth June."

"Oh right," the Doctor said, rocking back on his heels. "The anniversary of Queen Victoria's coronation. Gee, is it that time of year already? Wow, how long's she been reigning?"

"Why, it's fifteen years today," the barman said. "And a good, sturdy woman she is still. I predict a long, healthy reign."

"Yes, I think you might be right," the Doctor said. "Thank you."

He gestured to a table, and he and Martha sat across from each other. "So that makes it, what, 1852?" she asked.

"Very good," he said, smiling. "Remind me to give you your gold star later."

"You always say that, but I've never gotten one."

* * *

Phillip, age 8, sprinted across the street, jogged down three alleyways, skidded through a gate, plodded over a cluster of tombstones and traversed the cloisters into the St. Anthony's Convent. Under the hard gaze of a old nun who seemed to love whacking children with olive branches, he slowed his pace to a brisk walk, breathing hard and desperate to find Sister Micheline.

He found her in the infirmary, as usual, sitting on the floor near the hearth, her bony knees pressing painfully into the stone. She had her hands in a large basin and was washing clothes and blankets in hot water warmed over the fire.

"Sister! I've brought news!" Phillip cried out, breaking into a run once again as he entered the long room. He felt free now to be as emotive as he liked – he knew he was one of Sister Micheline's favourites of all the children in the convent. She was a nurse, not one of the childrens' caretakers, but she had made herself a friend to him.

"Hello, Phillip," she said, turning, but never stopping her washing. "What news?"

"I've just been at the Voyager's Repose," he told her, panting, resting his hands on his knees. "And I know that I'm not supposed to listen to the conversations of others but… a man came in and he spoke very loudly, to everyone."

"Yes?"

He took a deep breath. "There's a new doctor in town."

This news caused her to stop washing. She glared at Phillip. For a horrible moment, Phillip thought she was going to admonish him for overstepping his bounds. But he needn't have worried. "A _new _doctor? Where is he from?"

"He didn't say," Phillip said. "But he's with his wife, and they talk like us, but they didn't know what day it was."

"No matter," Micheline said. "If he's someone new, then I think we should make some effort to acquire him. Seems as though we've spoken to every other physician in London."

"Yes, Sister," Phillip murmured, unsure of what else to say.

"Do you suppose he's staying at the Voyager's Repose? If he is, that means he's a traveller and we'll have to employ his services _tonight_ before he has a chance to move on. Can you get him here, Phillip?"

"I will do my best, Sister," he told her, backing out of the room. "What should I tell him?"

"Tell him that the Sisters of Saint Anthony request his services," she said haughtily. "That is all he ever need know. If he is a proper, God-fearing man, that is."

"And if he's not?"

Sister Micheline thought about it for a long moment. Before this, she would have said that she didn't want any man who was not God-fearing attending one of _her _patients, but these were desperate times. It had been eight months, and nothing had worked. Not comfort, not medicines, not prayer, not beatings, not exorcism. This patient appeared to be incurable.

"Tell him the truth," she said simply.


	2. Chapter 2

TWO

The two travellers ate their stew and drank their wine, not unaware of the stares and whispering they were drawing, but that happened almost everywhere they went. Their style of dress was odd in most time periods and on most planets – staring and wondering was par for the course. Secretly, Martha wondered if the stares weren't at least in part due to the mixture of their skin colours. In Victorian England, any form of uptight conservatism could not be ruled out.

"I'm thinking we should take the room here and stay in it tonight, instead of in the TARDIS," the Doctor asked, still chewing.

She chuckled. "That's right. This lot thinks we're married so it's okay!" As she said those last three words, her eyebrows rose and her voice dropped in an exaggerated, mocking fashion. "But the TARDIS would be more private."

By contrast, his voice went up an octave as he asked, "Are you ashamed of me?" Of course, it wasn't a real question, he was just teasing, wanted to watch her stammer a bit.

But she was not so easily flustered. She cocked one eyebrow. "No, but this is a rickety building, no doubt the walls are thin, and I'm just afraid all the panting and moaning might scandalise these nice people and keep them awake all night."

Now, it was he who was at a loss for words. He cleared his throat and shifted in his chair under her unwavering gaze. He'd known what she meant when she'd said the TARDIS would be more private, but to hear those words actually come out of her mouth so easily... well, it was a bit different. And kind of exciting.

Finally, he was able to say, "Yes, well, be that as it may, we've been brought here for _some _reason. If we want to find out what that reason is, I think we need to talk to some folks, and what better place to do that?"

"No one's talking to us now," she pointed out.

"Well, it's the middle of the afternoon," he said, his words combating another mouthful. "Let the sun go down, build a fire, get some ale in these gents and they'll be singing like Ella Fitzgerald before too long."

"All right, then," she shrugged. "But don't blame me when the floorboards cave." She winked at him.

"Would you stop that, please?" he hissed, leaning across the table, but he was smiling. She touched his cheek playfully and laughed with him.

The barman wandered over. "Whenever you're ready, you can to up to your room," he said. He laid a key on the table. "It's up the stairs, second door on the right. You'll leave the key at the bar if you go anywhere."

"Thanks," Martha said, taking the key.

He started to walk away, and then turned back. "Haven't you got any baggage?"

"Of course we have," the Doctor said. "We've paid the carriage driver to sit with it while we have our lunch."

"Mmm," the barman said, walking away.

When he was out of earshot, the Doctor whispered, "When we're finished here, you go up to the room and I'll go back to the TARDIS and get some of our things."

"How long are we going to be here?" she whispered back, a bit worried now.

"No idea."

They finished, and Martha went upstairs to the room that was second on the right, and opened it easily with the key. The space was very simple; wooden on all six sides, a simple four-poster bed barely large enough for two, a table with a washbasin and two chairs. The only decoration was a cross on one of the walls and some unpretentious white curtains, now nearly yellow. Clearly, the building they were in was quite old, even in 1852, and the floor creaked with every move made. In fact, she could hear creaking all over, as people moved about. She wasn't particularly fond of this situation, but at least she got to stay here with the Doctor. And not just awkwardly sharing sleeping space as they had in Shakespeare's time.

She sighed, sat down on the bed and gazed outside. Nothing to do now but wait.

* * *

Phillip found himself running once more, back the way he had come. He was glad that he ran everywhere – it was good practise for emergencies like today. He burst through the door of the Voyager's Repose and stopped. He cast his eyes worriedly about the room. "Where is he?"

"Who?" asked the barman.

"That doctor," Phillip said, his voice rising in frustration. "The stranger who was dressed funny and came in with the black woman. He was here a few minutes ago, where is he?"

"They finished their meal. I reckon they must have gone up to get their room."

"Which one is it?"

"Number five, but..."

"Thanks!" Phillip called out, and he had disappeared up the stairs before the barman could stop him.

Martha was still sitting, contemplating the street outside, when she heard the rap at the door. She furrowed her brow, and silently decided to use the cross on the wall as a club if the need arose. She argued with herself about whether or not to open the door at all, when the voice of a child came through the wooden door. He sounded distressed, as though he might cry at any moment.

"Doctor? My name is Phillip and I need help. Please open the door!"

Martha pulled the door open and regarded Phillip. "Hello," she said.

"Hello, ma'am," he said, hesitantly. He had never spoken to anyone of her colour before – was it proper to call her ma'am?

"My name is Martha," she said. "And you're Phillip?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answered. "I'm looking for the Doctor."

"Well, he's not here at the moment," she told him. "Why don't you tell me what's wrong?" She stepped aside to let him in.

He looked at her wide-eyed, with a childish scepticism. Finally, he stepped across the threshold into the room, and Martha closed the door. "You can sit down," she said, gesturing to a chair.

"No, thank you ma'am," he insisted. "I can't stay."

"All right, then," she said. "What's the problem?"

He looked at her with that same scepticism, and Martha kept silent. She could see that he didn't quite trust her yet, and she supposed that was smart of him. She waited for him to speak, and just smiled, trying to put him at ease. Children should not be rushed, not when they are frightened.

After a long minute, the boy finally opened his mouth. "Are you his wife?"

She sighed. Here it was – someone had asked her outright. "Well, for the purposes of this discussion."

He cocked his head to the side. "Is that a yes, then?"

She nodded.

"All right," he said, taking a huge deep breath, then exhaling. He began to recite the speech he had memorised months ago, but which he hadn't used since at least Easter. "Sister Micheline, head of the infirmary of Saint Anthony's convent, requests the services of the Doctor. There is a patient whose condition is unknown and thus far, no physician, nor nurse nor priest has proved able to cure her."

Martha perked up. "Well, if that's all it is, then I can help you," she said, standing. "Show me the way."

The boy stood still. "You?"

"Yeah," she smiled. "I'm a doctor too." In her head, she finished the thought: _well, almost._

"You?" he repeated.

"Yes, it's true."

"But you're a woman."

"That's also true."

"And you're black."

"Again, true. But I'm not from around here, Phillip. Things are different where I come from – I'm a doctor, I promise you. I might be able to help the patient if you'll show me the way."

Phillip envisioned what Sister Micheline might say. He knew that she wouldn't believe that this Martha was a doctor – he wasn't quite sure he believed it himself. But she would very likely be cross with him if he failed to bring back to the convent a person who was offering to help.

He nodded at Martha, and walked out of the room. She followed.

Phillip wished he could run, but he knew that it was improper for a woman to run, so in deference to Martha, he moved quickly but stayed at a walking pace.

"What are the patient's symptoms?" Martha asked as they walked. Phillip looked at her, confused. "Is there coughing, a rash, bleeding, what?"

"I'm not sure ma'am," Phillip told her, still walking briskly. "Sister Micheline will not let me see her. All I know is that it's nothing anyone has ever seen, since every doctor in London has been in, and none of them can tell what's wrong."

In about five minutes, Martha found herself in the cloisters of Saint Anthony's convent being eyed carefully by two passing nuns. She wished them a good afternoon.

Phillip led her into a dark hallway, then into a long room lit only by a large fire. A nun sat near it, scrubbing.

"Sister," Phillip said, his voice echoing against the stone walls. "I've brought help."

Sister Micheline got to her feet and approached. She looked Martha up and down, and then asked, "Where's the Doctor?"

Phillip looked up at Martha with worried eyes. "My name is Martha," she said. "I am a doctor myself."

Sister Micheline looked at her with very much the same look as Phillip had given a few minutes before, except the nun's gaze held a much more adult distrust. "How could that be?"

"It doesn't matter," Martha told her. "Phillip tells me that all of the London doctors haven't known what to do. Wouldn't you welcome an outsider's perspective? Maybe I've seen things they haven't."

"Do you have some sort of a credential that you could show me?" Sister Micheline asked, fingering her rosary.

"I'm afraid I don't. Sister Micheline, you don't have to believe that I'm a doctor. But can you believe that I've had medical training, much as you have?"

"I suppose."

"And can you believe that I'd like to try to help you?"

"Yes."

"Then will you let me?"

A pause, and then, "Follow me."

Martha glanced at Phillip, who waved weakly as she moved away. She waved back, remembering that Phillip is not allowed to be near the patient.

They went out into the open air, and Martha followed the nun into a livery stable. She stopped in her tracks at the door. "Wait, you're keeping her in a stable?"

"We didn't have a choice," Sister Micheline said. "We know it's not... ideal, but she was upsetting the entire convent."

"So you just shuffle her out here where you keep the animals?"

"There are no animals in here," the sister told her. "It's only her, and we've tried to make her comfortable."

A bit angry now, Martha proceeded. Sister Micheline opened a stall gate and gestured inside.

To her credit, the stall was swept clean and cleared of hay. Wooden planks had been laid over the dirt, and an old rug had been laid over that. On a little night table, there was a stack of books and a couple of lit candles. Martha ran her hands over the books.

"Someone reads to her, tells her stories each day," Sister Micheline said softly. "And we never have her in the dark – we always keep her candles lit."

Martha felt a little pang of guilt for having judged the situation so quickly. Clearly, they were taking care of the patient, even though they had exiled her. She decided there must be _something_ incredibly upsetting about this patient's condition, otherwise, this wouldn't be happening.

On the cot, a young woman lay huddled, facing the wall. She was wearing a brown smock of some kind, and her hair was caked with oil and dust and plastered to her head. Her breathing was fast and erratic and if her calves and ankles were any indication, she was severely malnourished.

"What's her name?" Martha asked.

"We don't know," Sister Micheline replied. "A citizen found her lying naked and shivering, covered in filth, in an alley on the Isle of Dogs one night about eight months ago. He reported it to us, and we wrapped her in a blanket and brought her back here – not without a good deal of effort, mind you – and that's when we set about trying to bring her round. We've gotten nothing from her, not even a name. No one in London has reported a daughter or wife missing, no one has been able to identify sketches of her. It seems she's come from no-where. So we've been calling her Jane – Jane Doe."

"What do you feed her?"

"She won't eat," the nun answered. "Or rather, we cannot get her to be aware of food in front of her, and when we've tried to feed her, she... resists. The only thing she will take easily is sugar water, which we give her twice a day. When the Monsignor is here on Thursdays, he holds her down and some of the nuns force-feed her vegetables and cheese, but that is the only way she will take food."

"Does she bathe?"

"The novices bathe her twice a month," Sister Micheline said. "But she resists that as well. It's quite an undertaking. Sometimes it takes all day."

"And she hasn't said a word, ever?"

"No – nothing in English, or any language I've ever heard. The only sounds she makes are... wild, like growling."

"Growling?"

"Yes," Sister Micheline replied. Martha glanced at her and she was crossing herself, and, Martha saw, crying a bit.

It looked and sounded to Martha like a pretty severe dissociative disorder, but there were a number of them, and she couldn't be certain without her books. One thing was clear: the girl had been through some horrible trauma. Martha thought back to her psychiatric rotation. She'd seen many victims of violence and abuse come and go through the psychiatric ward, and had learned to spot the signs. Based on the evidence – she was found naked in an alley, she resisted being bathed or touched, she had self-destructive tendencies – Martha guessed that the girl had probably been unstable to begin with, but had also probably been raped, and maybe not just once. But again, Martha could not be certain without running tests and examining the girl in a way that these nuns would most certainly find improper.

"Has anyone done a gynaecological exam?"

"Of course not," Sister Micheline sniffed. "What would be the point of that?"

"All right," Martha said softly, more to herself than anyone. She sat down on the edge of the cot. "Jane?"

There was no response. Obviously, Jane was not her name, but what was Martha supposed to call her, Hey Girl?

"I'm here to help you," she said in a soothing tone. "I will not hurt you, I promise."

She reached out and touched the girl's shoulder softly.

As she did, the girl's body jolted violently. Like a wild animal, she snarled and bared her teeth while retreating further into the corner. Suddenly, the girl's feet met Martha's rib cage with brutal force, and Martha found herself on the floor, gasping for breath.


	3. Chapter 3

THREE

In the thrid closet he searched, he found the rucksack he was looking for, and he smiled – it had been ages since he'd had cause to use it. He decided three days' worth of provisions would be reasonable. He packed three of his suits, both brown and blue, with an assortment of shirts and ties. He threw in three changes of pants and a few history books that covered this era, just in case, then pyjamas, a toothbrush, comb, soap, etc. Next, he wandered over to Martha's room. He looked in her closet. Most of what was there would cause her to stick out like a sore thumb in Victorian London, but there was a skirt that looked to be about floor-length, and and dress, so he packed them. He chose a couple of conservative blouses and one or two not-so-conservative ones, a couple of pairs of her shoes and as an afterthought, threw in a pair of jeans. He chose all black knickers and buried them beneath the novel on the night table which Martha hadn't been reading since she'd moved into his room. She had a toiletries bag open on the vanity in the bathroom – he grabbed that as well. As he exited the TARDIS, he took his tan trenchcoat from the rack and stuffed it in.

In his younger years, it had been incredibly tempting to market this rucksack to humans, the infinite space packed inside an average-sized, manageable tote. He could have made a mint, but then, what would he have done with a mint? He chuckled at his youthful dreams.

He reached the Voyager's Repose and asked after their room. The barman directed him to the second door on the right. Somehow, he was not surprised that when he arrived, the door was unlocked, the key lying on the bed and Martha was nowhere to be seen. The scene was a bit eerie, and he asked himself the question he always asked when curious humans wandered off: stupidity or abduction? The possibility of the latter always prevented his anger from overtaking his concern and allowed him to go looking.

All very well and good, but of course, being in love guaranteed that the surge of panic was a lot stronger than he would have liked, with all of the hideous scenarios that could have caused her to disappear in a space of fifteen minutes without thinking to leave a note. He found his breath suddenly short and one of his hearts in his throat. He grabbed the key, locked the rucksack in the room, and ran down the stairs.

"Where's Martha?" he demanded of the barman.

"She's not up there?"

"No, she's not, that's why I'm asking!"

"Well, I didn't see her leave," the barman said, instinctively glancing toward the door. "How 'bout you gents?"

All the men sitting at the bar grumbled and shook their heads, and the Doctor dashed out onto the street. London was a big city, even in 1852, and the odds of finding Martha without some sort of extraterrestrial help were not good. He ran back to the TARDIS and plugged the sonic screwdriver head-first into the console. He calmed slightly, just enough to pat the cyllinder of light, and wait.

"Help me find her," he whispered to the TARDIS. He became aware that he was probably overreacting, that it had only been fifteen minutes since he left her, therefore it had been less than fifteen minutes since she'd walked away from the inn. He gave himself permission to move more slowly – forced himself, really – and let the TARDIS do its work.

All 'friends' of the TARDIS, anyone who travelled within for a long period, had a psychic connection with it. This allowed them to hear alien languages translated in their heads, protected them somewhat from mind probes and helped the TARDIS detect friendly versus unfriendly presences. The TARDIS was giving the sonic screwdriver an element of this technology, and it would allow the Doctor to detect any friend of the TARDIS remotely.

The Doctor thanked his sentient vessel and then set out in the afternoon grey to find Martha.

He found that the blue light and the buzz was attracting attention, so he held the sonic inside his suit coat as he scanned. Block after block, the same hum.

After nearly forty-five minutes, the Doctor realised he had no idea where he'd wandered to. He'd had his nose to the ground, as it were, and had forgotten to pay attention to where he was going.

"Excuse me," he said to a random passer-by. "New in town, a bit lost. Can you tell me where I am?"

"Well, you're on the Isle of Dogs, northern end," she said.

"Understood," he said. "Thank you."

He resumed his search, and in less than a minute, the sonic began making a new noise. Trouble was, it was making a noise that he hadn't expected, not the one that indicated that a friend of the TARDIS was nearby.

This hum meant an alien energy-source, and from the erratic tone, he suspected that whatever it was was simply _bleeding_ energy into this world, rather than funnelling in a controlled manner. No-one was using the energy, and likely no-one knew it was there. Nevertheless, it could contain harmful contaminants and needed to be found and sorted out.

He looked about, then looked up. A realisation hit him. Northern end of the Isle of Dogs? He was standing roughly where Canary Wharf would be built someday. The sonic was detecting the rift, six hundred odd feet up, which was, even now, leaking into this reality. So _this _was why he was here. He needed to get closer.

And for the moment, his lost companion left his mind.

Back to the TARDIS, his most trusted companion of all. He half-ran the two miles back to her, and burst through the door. At first, the heart resisted firing-up, but he assured it that they would not be leaving this time or place, but needed to suspend in the sky for a bit. They apparated six hundred feet above where the Doctor had been standing a few minutes before, and hung in mid-air.

The TARDIS' instruments detected the same energy-bleed, and also something else. An alien presence had very recently come through, or rather, had likely been vomited onto Earth, and its energy signature was still in the air among the particles from the rift's bleeding. It was faint, but it was there.

"What is that, eh?" the Doctor asked the TARDIS as he stared at the screen. The readings were familiar. The energy signature was partially human, and yet distinctly alien. Lots of species throughout the universe had hybridised themselves with humans, so this did not answer the question entirely, but helped narrow it down.

But he knew what _might_ answer the question. _Why_ had he suggested to Martha that they stay at the Voyager's Repose? Because people talk. He'd ask around at the inn tonight after the sun, and some alcohol, went down. No doubt, when aliens fall out of the sky onto Victorian London, they attract a fair bit of attention and people were likely to remember. And since the TARDIS had brought them here, then it must mean that these aliens had left their imprint somehow, and probably for the worse. He just hoped that the guests of the Voyager's Repose weren't too dreadfully _English_ to discuss it.

He set the TARDIS back down where he'd left it, around the corner from the inn. When he stepped outside, he was thinking about the evening ahead. He would sit in the tavern by the fire with Martha and ask about aliens. But how does one begin a conversation like that in an environment like this? He'd have to ask advice from...

"Oh God, Martha!" he said out loud. He had completely forgotten!


	4. Chapter 4

FOUR

The Doctor stopped in his tracks and pulled a pained face. He buried both hands in his hair and tugged, baring his teeth. How the hell could he have forgotten about Martha? She was still missing, and he'd been suspended six hundred feet above London dawdling with energy signatures...

Sure, when he'd started out, it had been hardly any time at all. But now! Now? He couldn't lose her now – not now that he'd just discovered their love...

He found himself running down the middle of the street with the sonic in his hand, set to identify beings that are part of the TARDIS' consciousness. He quickly decided to search in the opposite direction he'd gone before, since he'd had no success.

People were staring, but people always stared. He was nearly run down by a carriage and cursed by the driver, but that was pretty much an everyday occurrence for him as well. He ran headlong into several people and was obliged to set a five-year-old girl back on her feet, but before too long, the sonic made the sound he'd been wanting to hear. It seemed to be pointing toward Saint Anthony's convent where there were severe-looking nuns milling about in the cloister.

"Watch out!" a coachman cried from behind him, and when he stumbled out of the way, pulling his body to the side, the sonic indicated a presence in an entirely different direction. That was odd – two separate similar signals. He looked at the device with confusion. He aimed it at the convent, and then in the other direction toward what looked to be a hospital. Then he did it again, just to make certain.

A fresh surge of panic welled up. _Martha was either in the convent or in hospital._ Odds said it was probably the hospital, but he tried to tell himself that she'd gone there to help, not to be treated for a gash in the head or a goring through the chest or worse...

_She's probably helping. Stop hyperventilating._

He sprinted up the street and went around the corner to find the entrance. He found a large, cavernous space bustling with movement. Nurses and doctors moved about efficiently and there were rows of beds and benches where patients either lay or sat. Victorian times were a fertile time for medicine, and London was a major centre of science at the time. He felt relatively good about this place.

A nurse passed by, and he took her arm to get her attention. "Excuse me, I'm looking for my friend."

"A patient or a doctor?"

"I'm not sure – could be either. Her name is Martha Jones. She's small and dark-skinned..."

"Then, she's probably a patient, sir," the nurse answered.

"No, you're not listening..."

"Dr. Salter is treating an African woman for broken ribs. He's wrapping her up right now. Over in the corner, there." She indicated the farthest corner of the building. The Doctor squinted, and sure enough, very tiny over in the corner, Martha Jones was sitting upon a cot. She was wearing a white cotton chemise (Victorian underwear) and had her arms in the air, her face contorted. A man was gently wrapping her torso with linen bandages while a woman stood nearby watching. Making sure, no doubt, that no impropriety took place.

Without thanking the nurse, the Doctor pushed his way across the giant room.

"Martha," he heaved, unable to contain himself. He was still twenty feet away from her, but he was already reaching out. A few more steps and he took her head in his hands and kissed her about a million times about her head and cheeks and eyelids.

"Okay, okay, calm down, let the man do his job," she said.

"I was worried sick," he scolded, pulling away from her reluctantly. "Don't do that to me!"

"Sorry," she said, wincing as the doctor continued to wrap her up. "Something came up."

Dr. Salter and his nurse finished up. "Okay, Martha," he said. "It's probably best if you don't wear a corset for a few days, and move as little as possible. Do you have someone who can look after you?" He looked at the Doctor, searching.

The Doctor stepped forward. "Sorry, where are my manners? I'm the Doctor. I'm with her."

"Oh, brilliant, you're a doctor," he said. "I'm Dr. Salter. Are you her husband?"

"Er, sure, why not?"

"Well, then you should know she has at least three broken ribs. I've bandaged them so as to set them, but she needs time."

"Right. Let's see, two weeks' bedrest, eh?"

"Of course. Oh, and I know that I needn't remind you that she should not perform any... well... er, _marital duties_ until there is no pain."

The Doctor nodded gravely. "Of course, goes without saying." Neither of them saw Martha roll her eyes.

"Well then, Doctor, I leave Martha in your capable hands," Salter said as he moved away.

As he walked away, the Doctor turned to Martha. They simultaneously burst out laughing.

"Marital _duties_?" Martha asked. "Boy, if that doesn't take the fun out of it."

"Well, you know, it's Victorian times," he said. "You might have learned in your studies that sexuality at this time is a bit on the restrained side."

"I vaguely remember learning about that, yes." She sighed.

"I really was worried, you know." He kissed her forehead.

She grasped his wrists and closed her eyes. "I'm sorry that I worried you. Can I please wear your coat? They had to cut my clothes off me."

He got out of his suit jacket and helped her carefully slide into it, and then button it. Now, she was wearing blue straight-leg trousers with a ruffly Victorian chemise and a brown pinstriped suit coat which was sized for someone a foot taller than she. She was glad not to be her sister, so concerned with fashion!

"So, what's _really _wrong with you?" he asked. "Seems to me that if you had three broken ribs and no painkillers, you'd be writhing in pain right about now."

"It feels like maybe one is fractured. _Maybe_. They insisted on wrapping me up, so I didn't argue. I'll be fine tomorrow."

"Does it hurt to breathe?"

"A bit, but I'm breathing. Let's just be glad of that."

"Are you sure? If we go back to the TARDIS, I can re-wrap you with better bandages..."

"I'm fine," she said. "Trust me. I know about this stuff, remember?"

He smiled. "Yeah, I remember. How did this happen, anyway?"

"Well, after you left, a little boy called Phillip turned up looking for you. They needed a doctor, and you weren't there so… next best thing," she said, indicating herself and smiling brightly. "He took me to that convent there down the street, Saint Anthony's. Well, they have this girl locked up in one of the livery buildings and she's… well, seriously disturbed. When I tried to touch her, she kicked me in the ribs with both feet."

"How do you mean, seriously disturbed?"

"They found her naked in an alley and brought her back," Martha said sadly. "They have to force-feed and force-bathe her, she won't speak, and anytime anyone touches her, she reacts… well, you see. She's like… a beast. She's wild, like a wolf or something. Feral. She… _snarled_ at me."

He sat down on the cot next to her. "Diagnosis?"

"I couldn't examine her or anything, but… I think she's maybe a schizophrenic dissociating from a rape," Martha said, her voice catching.

He ran his hand over his face in distress. "Blimey."

"I know. But the signs are there. She was found naked, she _will not_ be touched…"

"Yeah," he whispered.

"Will you come and see her?" Martha asked. "I promised to bring you back as soon as I could find you. They think I'm out of my depth… and maybe I am."

"I will," the Doctor said. "But I've had a discovery today myself. I think it's the reason why we're here."

Martha's gaze was caught by something on the other side of the vast, busy room, and she waved. A little boy and a nun waved back. They made their way across the room to her.

"Martha, Martha, I'm so sorry," Sister Micheline said as she neared. "How are your ribs?"

"I'm all bandaged up," Martha said. "I'll be good as new in a day or two."

"Thank God," Micheline said, crossing herself.

"Doctor, this is Sister Micheline and Phillip, from the convent," Martha said.

The Doctor smiled and shook hands with the two of them.

"Doctor, do you think you'll be able to help our poor Jane Doe? Has Martha explained?" the Sister asked anxiously.

"Yes, she has," the Doctor said. "And I'd be happy to take a look. Though, I am in London on some rather pressing business. Would it be all right if Martha and I came by the convent tomorrow morning?"

"That would be lovely, Doctor," Sister Micheline said, taking Phillip happily by the shoulders. "We will take any help we can get at this point."

* * *

They walked slowly back to the Voyager's Repose with Martha leaning on the Doctor's arm, though more as a gesture of affection than out of need. He explained what he found as they walked. Martha listened with no comment – what sort of comment could she make regarding an alien species that leaves behind traces of a human energy signature, six hundred feet over London?

When he was finished, she asked, "So what do we do?"

He was pleased with himself. "I've told you," he said, smiling broadly. "We talk to the folks."

They strode back to the inn and headed upstairs. Martha's first priority, silly as it seemed, was to get her clothes changed.

"Were you able to pack some of my things?" she asked, entering the room. "I really need to put on something else. _This _outfit is just a step too far, even for people from the future."

"Yes," he told her, heaving the rucksack onto the bed. "Let me choose something for you. If we're going to go down and sit at the fireside with the travellers, they need to trust us. They already think we're nutters, it might help if you dressed a bit more like them."

"Well, at least I'm not allowed to wear a corset for a while."

The Doctor unpacked all of the items he had stuffed into the rucksack. Martha watched in awe as an amazing number of items came out of the rather small space. She understood the 'bigger on the inside' concept, but that didn't make the display any less entertaining.

She recognised the grey sundress that the Doctor must have taken from her wardrobe. It was made of a breathable, crinkly fabric, and as was usual with anything Martha bought off-the-rack, it was too long for her and came all the way to her ankles. The dress was relatively loose on her all the way down, which was what she needed right now, with her injured rib. She was just about to reach out and touch it, when the Doctor beat her to it. He picked it up by its spaghetti straps and said, "I think this would be best, and then we can put the white tunic blouse over it, so as not to scandalise the restless natives by showing them your shoulders."

She smiled. "All right." As he picked up a history book and began perusing, she unbuttoned and shed the Doctor's brown suit jacket. There she stood in the cotton chemise with the bandages wrapped around it, and her blue trousers. She began to search for the end of the bandage, as she deemed it unnecessary, but as she twisted, she felt a sharp pain shoot through her torso. She winced.

"What?" asked the Doctor, looking up from the table of contents.

"Ugh," she said, turning back around to her natural position very slowly. "I can't find the end of the bandage."

He walked toward her. "Are you certain you want to remove it?"

"Yes," she promised. "I would be in loads more pain than this if I were broken, trust me."

"All right," he sighed, shrugging. He put his hands on her gently, around her ribcage. He slipped his hands around to her back and carefully felt for the bandage's tie-off. She leaned into him slightly as he did this, took in his scent, which did not escape his notice. He smiled warmly as he found the tie-off and began to unwind the bandage. They kept eye contact as he did this, until the last of the linen had fallen from her body and the Doctor tossed the long piece of cloth aside.

"Thank you," she whispered with a sheepish smile.

"Anytime," he whispered back. He turned once more, wistfully, back toward his book.

She crossed her arms in front of her and grabbed the tail of the chemise the hospital had given her. She prepared to remove it, but the shooting pain returned before she'd lifted two inches. She winced again.

The Doctor turned and looked at her. "Need more help?"

"Yes, please."

He walked toward her once again. "Can you get your arms straight up over your head?"

Carefully she pushed her arms straight up. He took the tails of the chemise between his fingers and pulled it up over her head and arms and hands. Slowly she lowered her arms, and stood there staring at him, nude from the waist up, goose bumps having nothing to do with the temperature. He grasped her upper arms lightly. He lowered his lips and kissed her ear softly, then the tender area behind her ear, and then her neck. Then he planted slow kisses down to her clavicle and across her shoulder.

She sighed with delight, losing herself in the sensation, but when she followed her instinct and reached out to put her arms around him, she was reminded of her injury. They looked at each other half with sadness, half with amusement.

"I guess now is not the time anyway," she whispered. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," he whispered back, caressing her neck.

He turned and took up the grey dress, and he waited as she slowly shed her trousers and got her arms up once more. He laced her hands through the straps and let the fabric fall naturally around her. Then he helped her into the white blouse and a pair of black clogs. As they approached the chamber door, they kissed with restraint, then looked at one another with regret. They both would have liked very much to spend the evening nowhere but right here together.

But life with the Doctor meant that sometimes, injuries and aliens take precedence. So they headed downstairs.


	5. Chapter 5

FIVE

"Good evening, Doctor," the barman said. "Mrs. Doctor. Come to regale us with tales of great adventure?"

"Oh, perhaps if you're nice to us," the Doctor joked, looking sideways at Martha. "Could we just have some bread and tea, please?"

"Sure thing."

There was a group sitting round the hearth, even though there was no fire. The night was a warm, mid-June humid, and no fire was necessary, but that didn't stop the folks from having a fireside chat. To Martha's relief, it looked as though there were at least two other women sitting with the group, though they were sitting on the periphery. At least it wasn't some total Victorian boys' club.

Martha wandered over to the group and sidled up next to one of the women. "Hello," she said. "Do you mind if I sit near you?"

The woman looked at her with interest, and then concern. Martha thought she must be weighing the consequences of socialising with a black person against turning her away. Inwardly, Martha rolled her eyes. Then, reluctantly, the woman acquiesced. "Not at all." She moved a cloth sack out of the chair next to her, which seemed to contain knitting paraphernalia. She had a small but noticeable bump beneath her breasts, and was working on what looked to be a very tiny jumper.

"That's a lovely little garment there," she commented, trying to sound as innocuous and cheerful as possible. "I'm Martha, by the way."

"Er, yes," the woman said. "Thank you. The baby is coming in the autumn, it's bound to be cold." She did not introduce herself.

"Well, you'll certainly keep the little one warm in that," Martha encouraged. Then, without thinking, she asked, "Do you know yet whether it's a boy or a girl?"

The woman looked at her horrified, as though she had sprouted horns. "How would I know that?" Her voice betrayed fear.

Martha's body flushed with an unpleasant shock of heat. _Of course she doesn't know, you dolt._

"Oh, I don't know," Martha shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. "Thought you might have a feeling or something."

"You mean a _premonition_?" asked the woman.

"Yeah, maybe."

She continued to look at Martha with horror. "Only God may tell the future."

"Right," Martha nodded. Premonitions were only the work of gypsies and other minions of the devil; she should have known. "I'm sorry. I was just wondering if you had some kind of _opinion_."

The horror slowly dissipated from the woman's face and she went back to her knitting. "Well, we already have two daughters – we are praying that God favours us with a son this time." She was still guarded, and her body language indicated that she did not wish to be bothered any further.

"Ah," Martha said, sitting back, immeasurably glad to see the Doctor join the group with a wooden plank adorned with brown bread and a bit of honey. A serving girl followed him with a tray with a teapot and two cups.

"Hello gents," he said, waving at the men, ignoring the women. Martha sighed. _I always hated history_.

He sat down near Martha and pulled over a small table between them, setting down the bread and gesturing for the serving girl to set down the tea, thanking her. Martha realised it was dinner-time and she was famished. The affair at the convent and hospital had worn her properly out.

The Doctor had begun by speaking to the man nearest. She hadn't caught his name, but he and the Doctor had taken to each other well enough. He was also the man nearest to the knitting woman, so Martha assumed he was her husband. "You know, I heard the strangest thing today," the Doctor said, pouring tea for himself and Martha.

Martha saw a flicker of appal from the knitting woman as he did so. She wondered what was wrong with Martha that she couldn't do this domestic task. Martha compensated by cutting the bread.

"I was on the Isle of Dogs today, attending to some business," he continued. "And I heard...well, it's quite silly." He feigned a sheepish grin.

"Go on, now," the man encouraged. "You heard what?"

"Well, I heard someone say..." the Doctor said, glancing at Martha. "...now bear in mind, he was a doddering old fool... he said something about something falling from the sky."

"Well, he was probably addled with drink," the man said, slapping the Doctor's shoulder. "I wouldn't give it a second thought."

"But that's the thing. I heard a few other whispers about it as well," the Doctor told him, growing more serious. "Creatures from another world, falling out of the sky."

The man looked at him blankly, as did the wife.

"No?" the Doctor asked them, sticking out his bottom lip. "Isle of Dogs, about six months ago? Maybe a year?"

Tight-lipped, clearly artificial, the man answered him, "Doctor, I'm from Surrey. I do not concern myself with the ravings of madmen in London."

"I see," the Doctor said to him, leaning back in his chair. "Sorry to have bothered you with it."

The man said it was time to turn in, and demanded that his wife follow. Of course she obeyed, and the two of them bid the Doctor and Martha a detached, cold good night. The Doctor looked at Martha, scowling. It was an expression that said he suspected something, and Martha reckoned he must be right. The man had clammed-up awfully quickly, and had removed himself entirely from the possibility of discussing it again tonight. The Doctor had been afraid of this reaction – too English, too Victorian to talk about such things.

Martha might have known. The wife's reaction to Martha's question had told her as much.

The Doctor decided to try again. He turned to the man on the other side of him and began a conversation about the Queen, the weather and hog futures. This time, Martha did catch his name – it was Luke Montgomery. He was much younger, about her age, she guessed. He didn't seem to have a wife with him. Then, just as he had before, the Doctor told him about the 'doddering old fool,' only this time, Luke's eyes flashed with surprise.

"Oh, Doctor," he said. "No-one discusses that."

"I do," the Doctor said gravely. "Tell me."

Luke looked about, making sure he was not being overheard. "Mind you, I am not a local," he said. "I was only passing through London on my way to see my family in Kent. But..." Luke buried his head in his hands.

"It's okay," the Doctor told him, patting him on the shoulder. "It's why I'm here, it's what I do. Please continue."

"It was Christmas Eve," he said. "There were these... men. Only they weren't men. Of course, it's now been explained away – men in a strange kind of armour, a kind no-one had ever seen. And they started spreading out, from the Isle of Dogs, right across the city."

"Mmm hmm."

"But they all spoke with the same voice, the same... I don't know... _metallic_ voice. Like the voice of the devil himself. And they carried no weapons – what kind of man in armour carries no weapon? Truth be told, Doctor, I don't think they _were_ men in armour. I think they were from another world. Hell, perhaps. I don't know."

The Doctor regarded him gravely, but kindly. "I believe you're right, Luke."

"But no-one wants to talk about it," Luke complained. "God in his infinite wisdom and all that malarkey. But we all know what we saw – this lot, they're just in denial."

"The mind can tell us anything we want it to tell us," the Doctor said. "They're just not ready for the strange truth."

"Well, you haven't even heard the strangest part."

"No?"

"No," he sighed, wide-eyed. "The strangest part was... well, it was like a giant one of these metal men. It came right up out of the Thames and began walking across the city."

This surprised even the Doctor.

"How giant?"

"Massive! Like... I don't know like what."

"Bigger than Big Ben?"

"A thousand times bigger than Big Ben!"

"That's big," the Doctor nodded. "How have they explained that one away?"

"There was a man in a balloon," Luke explained with a half-smile. "He seemed to do something to 'vanquish' the giant, and for a while, he was lauded as a hero. But when the Christmas hubbub died down, it was decided that it was _his _doing, that he had hoodwinked the city somehow. It was very obvious that the giant had everything to do with the metal men, so eventually, everyone blamed that man for that, as well. They say he must have been building an army and trying to overthrow the monarchy... rubbish. Everything is about overthrowing the monarchy if you ask the masses."

"Who was the man?" the Doctor asked.

"No-one knows," Luke said. "No one really saw his face, he was too high up in the balloon to be seen."

"What happened to the metal men?"

"They all seemed to disappear after that night. The next day, they began rebuilding the parts of the city that had been damaged and also began the process of rationalising."

"Do you think they're gone, Luke? The metal men, I mean?"

"I think they are," Luke said, matter-of-factly. "But what do I know? I don't even live here. I just come to London every few months to sell my fabrics."

"Thank you, Luke," the Doctor said.

Martha leaned forward and whispered in the Doctor's ear, "What's happening?"

"Let's finish eating, and I'll tell you when we get back upstairs."

* * *

"Okay, what's going on?" she asked as soon as she set foot in their room.

"Cybermen."

"What?"

"They're called Cybermen. They look like men in armour, but they're not. They're humans who have been chopped up and turned into robots," he explained, without looking at her. "And they can kill you just by touching you. Remember the Canary Wharf thing, where your cousin died?"

"Yes," she said.

"I remember her, they called her Addie," he told her. "She was one of the Cybermen's operatives – she and one other bloke set the whole thing in motion that wound up opening the rift in 2006. She had been partially converted... they let her keep her human appearance so that she could operate amongst the humans."

"Oh my God," she gasped. Martha sat down on the bed, staring at the floor.

"It wasn't her fault, Martha. She was lured into the machine and..."

"Chopped up?"

"In a manner of speaking," the Doctor whispered, wishing he had chosen his words more carefully. "I suppose it was bound to be one of the hazards of working for Torchwood at that time."

"Yeah."

"Anyway, the rift was open, and it led into the void," he resumed explaining.

"What's the void?"

"It's the _nothing space_ between universes, between dimensions," he told her. "There is no time, no matter, no light... nothing. Nothing has meaning or form. It's just nothing. A sentient being in the void... they'd go mad. Actually, mad doesn't cover it. When Luke said the creatures had come from hell, he wasn't wrong."

"Hell is between universes? And a portal to hell opened up in Canary Wharf?"

He thought about it. "Well, yes. I suppose so. That day, everything in sight was getting sucked in... Cybermen, Daleks, people..." he choked on his words. "The rift must have opened up and dropped the Cybermen somehow in 1851. So they picked up right where they left off, trying to convert the world."

"And the giant?"

"That's new," the Doctor said. He began to pace. "I've never heard of the Cybermen being able to pull off anything like that, but... you learn something new every day, eh? What bothers me is, who was that man?"

"Do you think he was really at fault?"

"I don't know – seems likely," he shrugged. "The Cybermen have been known to align themselves with humans when it suited them, but those people usually wind up hybridised and betrayed. He was probably converted. And if Luke is right, and the Cybermen went away... he probably went with them."

"Where could they have gone?"

"I don't know," the Doctor told her. "But my sonic didn't pick up anything live today. Only energy signatures that were months old. I tend to think that Luke is right, and they have gone."

"So then, why are we here? To find that man in the balloon? Or at least work out who he was?"

"Perhaps," he said. "Maybe tomorrow, we start asking about him. We'll start with... I don't know, people who make balloons?"

"After we visit Jane Doe, of course."

"Of course."


	6. Chapter 6

SIX

Martha didn't sleep well that night. The whole situation was just too unsettling. A rape victim who cannot speak, finding out that her cousin Addie had become a Cyberman, knowing that there was some bloke in a balloon who was probably dead but who they needed to track down anyway. And hey – a Cyberman the size of a thousand Big Bens? That's enough for some quality nightmares by itself. Not to mention, her rib hurt, any movement was a reminder, and it also prevented her and the Doctor from…

Well, now, if she thought about that, she'd never get to sleep.

But she must have drifted off at some point because when the wake-up call came, it jolted her out of some manner of sleep. And, it seemed, the Doctor as well. They dressed (Martha in the same clothes as yesterday, the Doctor in basically the same clothes as always) and went downstairs for something to eat. They had the same bread as they'd had the night before, a little bit of egg. Plus, some coffee that could take the paint off the walls, which was a good thing, as Martha felt groggy like death.

"Can we please eat something green later? Don't we have some spinach or something in the crisper in the TARDIS?" she asked.

"I suppose so," he answered, chewing. "What's the matter? You don't look well."

"I didn't sleep great," she confessed.

He took a sip of coffee. "Whoa!" he all but shouted. "Have some of this, it'll cure all your ills."

"I'm working on it," she told him, picking up her own cup. "But I got maybe an hour's rest. Hard to tell without a clock in the room."

"I'm sorry, did I snore? I've been told I snore."

"Really? No, I've never heard you snore."

"Well, that was a long time ago," he told her. "I might have had different sinuses then. Different nose and all."

"Who told you that?"

He cocked one eyebrow at her, telling her he knew what she was asking, and he wasn't going to discuss it just now. He sighed, though, and said, "Well, I suppose we'll have to have that discussion _someday_."

They made a battle plan for the day. First, they would see Jane Doe. Then, depending how long that took, they would begin asking after the man in the balloon. The Doctor thought Luke Montgomery would be a good place to start. He didn't seem to have an overly Victorian disposition, perhaps he knew of a balloon-maker or could refer him to someone else who was a forward-thinker like him. Perhaps he had made some clever friends on his trips to London.

When the serving girl came to collect their empty plates, the Doctor asked, "Excuse me, do you remember that youngish blond man I was talking with last night? Name's Luke."

"Yes, sir," she said. "He's been here three days. He's a very nice man."

"Can you tell me which room he is staying in?"

It occurred to Martha that the girl might construe this as a rather insulting question, but she simply answered, "He is in room ten," she answered.

"Thanks, love," he said to her with a warm smile. She curtsied and went away.

"So we hit room ten after the convent," the Doctor said. "I hope he's still here this afternoon."

They stood up and walked out of the inn and headed toward the convent. This route inevitably reminded the Doctor of his panic-stricken search yesterday.

"How's the rib?" he asked.

"Better," she said, guardedly. "Though I think it would be even better still if I'd gotten any sleep to speak of."

"Well, we'll do better for you tonight," he said, putting an arm around her. "And I'm not just being lascivious. As long as we're going back to the TARDIS for a green dinner, I could gather some ingredients for an organic sleeping draught."

"I'll only do that if necessary," she said. "But thanks. If it had to be Victorian times, I'm glad we're time travellers and not just, you know, locals."

"Innit brilliant?" he asked, with that childish grin. They both laughed a bit.

They walked another couple of blocks, hand-in-hand, in silence. They were attracting a few stares. Martha could guess at why. No other couples were being demonstrative enough to hold hands... plus there was that other thing that seemed to plague Martha everywhere she went in this time period. A hundred years earlier or a hundred years later, life would have been so much easier.

When they arrived at the corner where the Doctor had been yesterday, he stopped dead and faced her. "You know, something odd happened yesterday."

"Lots of odd things happened yesterday."

"No, I mean, when I was looking for you," he said to her, gazing past her. "The sonic has this feature where if I plug it into the TARDIS' circuits, it will detect any friend of the TARDIS."

"The TARDIS has friends?"

"Yes, those who have travelled with it," he explained. "And yesterday, when I reached this corner, I got a signal from the convent _and_ from the hospital. Which is very, very odd."

"Well, weren't you talking about residual energy yesterday? Maybe I left an energy signature behind at the convent after I'd gone over to the hosptial. I mean, I _was_ sort of wound up because I'd just been kicked in the ribs by a possible rape victim. Can heightened emotions cause a stronger signature to be left behind? Technically, it does take more energy to be upset than not to be."

He thought about what she was saying. "Yes," he said. "I suppose that makes sense. But that would mean you'd have to have _just_ left the convent, and you'd have to have been _mightily_ upset."

"I don't know what to tell you, Doctor."

"Hmm," he shrugged. "Don't know what to tell myself. Shall we?"

She took his arm as they crossed the street. Martha led him through the cloisters and into the infirmary the same way as Phillip had led her before. She wasn't sure if it was proper to enter a convent unnanounced, but the Doctor wasn't protesting, and anyway, what else could she do? Go to the front and ring the doorbell?

Sister Micheline was attending to two patients in the infirmary. Both were elderly nuns, and Micheline was crossing the room with a basin of water. As she wrung out a cloth and placed it on the forehead of one of her patients, Martha spoke.

"Good morning, Sister," she said softly, so as to get her attention but not startle her.

"Oh, good morning Martha, Doctor," she said. "Come right in. I'm just attending to some business, I won't be a moment."

She set the basin down and extracted another cloth. With one hand, she gently held the elderly nun's lips open, and with the other, she squeezed some water into the mouth. Then she repeated the action. The nun was conscious, had no trouble swallowing on her own, but she didn't bother to look at the two guests. The Doctor approached (but not too closely) the other nun. She already had a compress on her forehead and seemed to be asleep.

"Heatstroke?" he asked.

"Yes," Sister Micheline said with exasperation. She whispered, "They both insist on working in the garden all day, even in this heat. They had to be dragged in here last night by some of the novices."

"Do they have white habits they can wear?" Martha asked, having seen nuns in the past with lighter-coloured clothing.

"In our order, only the Mother Superior wears white," answered Sister Micheline. "Otherwise, that would be a fine idea. So, I assume you've come to see our other patient."

"That's right. Now, can you please tell me entire story again?" the Doctor asked.

As she led the way out to the livery stable, Sister Micheline told the Doctor everything she knew, including how she has to be held down and force-fed by the Monsignor and fitfully bathed twice per month.

The three of them went into the stable. As before, the girl was lying on her side, curled up and facing the wall. Candles were lit, and a new book was on the night table.

Softly, staring pitifully at the girl, the Doctor asked, "What has been tried, as far as reaching her? Getting her to speak?"

"We have tried every prayer we know," she told him. "Over and over, we have asked God to speak through her and for her, we have asked Him to bless her with clarity, we have asked Him to forgive her and grant her clemency. The Monsignor has tried some of the same, even asked Saint Megan to give her guidance through her pain and silence. The other doctors have tried different teas and fumes, said to open the mind. Even Opium! They have tried all manner of alcohol, which is said to loosen the tongue. Doctor, absolutely nothing has worked."

"Alcohol and Opium don't work," the Doctor muttered. "Perhaps what's wrong with her is not endogenic or somatic."

Martha understood; it was psychological and induced by trauma, as she had feared.

The Doctor understood it as a cue to use his talent for mind-probing.

He walked toward the cot. "Jane Doe, they call you?" he asked her gently. "I'm going to call you that too, because I don't know what else to call you."

The girl twitched a bit, then placed her hands over her face.

"That's the most direct reaction we've ever seen to anyone's voice," Sister Micheline said. "Mostly, it just seems that she doesn't hear."

"Keep talking," Martha encouraged. "Maybe she'll do something else."

He picked up a chair from the corner and put it very near the cot. He leaned over with his elbows on his knees and spoke to her sweetly. "Jane, I'm the Doctor, and I'm here to help you. I know you've probably heard that before, but I'm not like them. I'm not just any doctor – I know things that they don't. I know things that _nobody_ else knows, and I think I can help you."

Another subtle twitch, something that indicated she could hear. No sign of response or understanding yet, but to Sister Micheline, this was very encouraging.

"But in order for me to do that," the Doctor continued, "I have to touch you, therefore, I need you to trust me. I need you to trust that I will never hurt you, and that I might be the only man in the world who can find out what's happened to you. I know that's difficult, Jane. I know that whatever you've been through has been horrific, and that makes it hard to trust anyone or anything. But Sister Micheline is here – you know her, she's been looking after you all along. She trusts me. And she trusts Martha."

No twitch this time, and the Doctor looked at Martha with sadness.

"Jane, I'm going to put my hands on your head. Nowhere else, only your head. You do not have to move or do anything else, only lie exactly as you are and let me help you, all right?"

No response. He reached out with his left hand. Very, very slowly.

"All right, love. I'm very close to you now, you're going to feel my left hand just above your ear. After that, I will place my right hand on the top of your head. I won't hurt you, and I don't need anything from you. You just lie where you are."

Sister Micheline crossed herself, and Martha held her breath.

As his hand got closer, Jane's breathing seemed to speed up to a manic pace, as though she could feel the warmth of a newcomer coming nearer to her body.

When his left hand made light contact with her temple, the girl let out a rough, guttural scream and before anyone could stop it, she had rounded on the Doctor and bashed her elbow into the side of his head. This sent him tumbling to the floor, taking the chair with him.

Martha rushed to his side and the two of them scrambled another few feet from the cot. Sister Micheline instinctively placed herself at the girl's feet and began trying to calm her.

"Jane, it's all right, it's all right, please lie down, sweetheart," she said, but there wasn't much she could do without touching the girl.

The feral patient continued to cry out and snarl at the Doctor from her vantage point upon the cot. When he finally got his wits about him, he looked at her. Suddenly, an expression of utter horror crossed his face, contorting the Time Lord's features into those of a frightened child.

"Doctor, what's wrong? What is it?" Martha asked, frantically, his apparent fear frightening her immeasurably.

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He tried again, but only a squeak came from his lips, and quite to Martha's terror, tears began to fall.

"Doctor, talk to me! What is wrong?" she asked again.

This time, he was able to croak out, "Oh God," before pushing away from Martha. He got himself clumsily to his feet and backed toward the stall door, his mouth still open with shock and fear, his body not his own to control. Martha and Sister Micheline watched the scene helplessly, helpless to calm either the Doctor or the girl.

He turned and stumbled out through the gate toward the stable door, and Martha followed. As she did, she made a gesture that Sister Micheline should stay, and she hoped the nun would understand. Fortunately, she did, as she did not try to follow.

Martha found the Doctor outside, sitting on a bench against the stable's outer wall, hyperventilating. She was at such a loss. Nine hundred years of horrors and nightmares and pain flooded his mind, she knew, and she had absolutely no idea where to begin.

So she didn't say anything, she just sat down beside him and placed her hand on his back. He collapsed against her, and sobbed copiously into her shoulder, both hands grasping at her. This was possibly the most confusing and upsetting thing she had ever witnessed – _her Doctor_, helpless and terrified.

When he had exhausted himself, he sat up and leaned his head back against the stable wall and shut his eyes tightly.

"Doctor, what is happening? I don't know what to do! Tell me what to do so I can help!" She tried not to sound as urgent as she felt, but she didn't particularly succeed.

He said nothing for a long time, but remained with his head back and his eyes closed.

Quite suddenly he sprung into action. He grabbed her by the arms. "Martha, find Luke. We have _got_ to find that man in the balloon." He stood up.

"But, wait..." she protested, also standing.

"Just do it," he told her. And then, he took her head in his hands. He looked at her deeply, but desperately, and said, "I love you. Whatever happens, I want you to remember that. I love you." He kissed her hard, and before she could say anything else, he was running away from her.

Now more frightened than she had ever been, she sat down on the bench. Now it was her turn to weep.


	7. Chapter 7

SEVEN

Martha decided she had to pull herself together before Sister Micheline came outside and started asking questions. She had no idea what she might say, so she simply ran from the convent. She headed back toward the inn to do as the Doctor had asked.

On the floor above where she and the Doctor had their room, she found a door labeled "10". She knocked. She guessed it must be about nine in the morning – she supposed it was possible that Luke might still be here.

The door opened. Luke's face flickered with surprise. "Hello," he said. "Er, you're with that Doctor, aren't you?"

"Yes. My name is Martha. Luke, I need to talk to you," she said urgently. She pushed past him and entered his room.

"Erm, ma'am, this isn't proper," he said. "You're in my bed chamber!"

"Do you care, or are you just worried someone else might care?"

He resigned. "The latter. What can I do for you?" he asked, closing the door.

"The Doctor is insistent that we locate the man in the balloon that you mentioned, or at least try to find out who he is. Is there _anything_ more you can tell me?"

"Why do you need to find that man?"

"I don't know," Martha exhaled with exasperation. "The Doctor just… needs it. He gets these bees in his bonnet and won't let go. And he's almost always right, so I have to listen to him."

"I'm sorry, Martha," he said. "I don't know anything. I saw the balloon, but it was so high up… it came down in a different part of the city."

She let out a frustrated, "Rrrrr!" sound. "Okay, plan B. Can you tell me who makes those balloons?"

"Now, that I can tell you," he said. "I sell fabrics! I and another manufacturer sell canvas to a man in London called Delbert Bretton. He makes perhaps two balloons a year."

"Can you take me to him?"

"Well, I was supposed to go to the wares fair today," he told her, leaning contemplatively on one hip. "But this sounds like much more fun."

"Thanks, Luke," she said. "I'll owe you."

* * *

Bretton's shop was on the outskirts of town on the northwestern side. Plenty of heath spread out behind the building, and Martha could see at least twenty workers in the grasslands, sewing with giant needles. On any other day, she would have been curious to watch the process of sewing up a giant hot-air balloon, but today, she clearly had other things on her mind.

She and Luke entered the shop, which was really more like a cramped, hot office. At the large desk, a big, ruddy man sat keeping books. Martha assumed this was Mr. Bretton.

"Hello, sir," Luke said. "How are you today?"

"Luke!" the man said, standing up. He put out his hand to shake, and Luke took it.

"This is Martha," Luke said.

Bretton looked at her with disdain. "So it is."

"We have a question for you, Mr. Bretton," Luke said. "Do you remember at Christmas, the man in the balloon who they say was involved in the armoured invasion?"

Bretton cleared his throat loudly. "What is this about, Montgomery?"

"It's just," Luke half-whined. "We were wondering if you made that balloon."

"So what if I did?"

"Do you remember to whom you sold it?" he asked.

Bretton did not answer, but stood with his arms crossed defensively, looking at Luke with mistrust.

"Martha needs to find him," he added, uncomfortable under the gaze of the large man.

Martha chimed in. "Actually, it's a friend of mine who needs to find him…"

"I don't recall asking you to speak," Bretton snapped at her.

"I don't recall asking your permission." This had already been a hell of a day, and she'd had enough.

Bretton puffed himself up haughtily and turned even redder than he already was. "You can leave my office, right now, you!"

"Fine," Martha shot back, and she stomped toward the door.

"I'll be out in a second," Luke told her as she walked away.

She felt anger rising in her, finally after twenty-four hours in this oppressive place. With the Doctor by her side, she could stand being treated like a third-class citizen because she knew that as soon as they were alone, she could be number-one in his world again. But without him, knowing that he was out there somewhere, in pain, frightened, alone and without her, it was all too much. She embraced the anger and urgency. With all her strength, she kicked the side of the building. It hurt like hell, but it made her feel better. She began to pace.

After several minutes, Luke emerged. "You're not from around here, are you?" he asked, smiling at her amusedly.

"No," she told him flatly. "What gave it away?"

"I've never met a woman, especially a black woman, who behaved the way you do," he said. "Most of them know their place."

The anger came back with a vengeace. "Now look…" she began to scold him with her finger in is face.

"No, no," he said, stepping back. "I think it's brilliant. I'm just saying that most of this lot thinks everyone has their proper place, like a caste system. You won't abide that. That's why I like you – that's why I decided to help you."

"Oh, okay," she said, dropping her arms to her side. "Thanks. I think."

"He sold the balloon to someone called Jackson Lake."

"Great," Martha sighed. "How do we find him?"

"Mr. Lake is a teacher," Luke told her. "We can ask at the schools."

* * *

Running on pure adrenaline, and no sleep, was good for no-one. She had spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon with Luke running from Bretton's office across town to two schools, to Lake's former residence, then to five different coach-hiring offices. Apparently, Jackson Lake had left London in the Spring, and according to the records, he had gone with all of his belongings, his son and his housekeeper to Cambridge. The good news was that he hadn't become a Cyberman. The bad news was that there was no guarantee that Jackson Lake was the man they were looking for.

In any case, he was in Cambridge. She had to wait now for the Doctor. Just as well; she was utterly exhausted.

Luke and Martha arrived together back at the inn.

"Thank you for your help today," she sighed. "I couldn't have done it without you. Sorry you had to miss business for today."

"It's all right," he assured her. "This was far more exciting. What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to take a nap," she answered. "And wait for the Doctor to come back."

"All right, well, have a good sleep, Martha."

She entered their room and lay down on the bed. She fell easily asleep. Dreamless and deep.

When she awoke, the only light in the room came from the streetlamps outside the window. It was night, hours and hours had passed and the Doctor still had not returned. She left the room, walked briskly down the stairs and struck out into the night to find the TARDIS. She remembered where it was parked, and hoped it would still be there. She chose not to try and contemplate what she would do if it had gone.

Luckily, it was where she had last seen it, and the door was unlocked. She went inside and locked it behind her. There, standing with his hands on the console, staring into the light cyllinder at the center, stood the Doctor. He did not acknowledge her presence. She walked toward him slowly and carefully, watching his face for any signs of life, but she found none. He was like stone.

"Are you asking it about Jane Doe?" Martha asked softly.

He nodded, almost imperceptibly.

"Any answers?"

He nodded again, even more subtly than before.

She wasn't going to ask a stupid question like 'do you know who she is' because it was obvious that he did. She was also not going to ask him again to tell her what was going on. For now, she thought, he needed her just to do as he asked. He had told her how to help with the Jane Doe problem, and she had done her best.

But he also needed comfort. And wasn't that her job?

Tentatively, she came close to him, watching to see if he would pull away from her. He did not. She reached up and stroked the side of his face. "Doctor," she whispered. "I'm sorry." To her surprise, he closed his eyes and leaned his head into her hand and seemed to relish her touch. As he did this, his entire body seemed to relax. His wide-footed stance melted into something much less rigid, and Martha saw the light in the cyllinder go out. Even the TARDIS was exhausted.

But Martha hadn't been sure he was going to let her console him; apparently, though, now he was acknowledging her new place in his life. He put his hand over hers, and removed it from the side of his face, and instead brought it to his lips and kissed it. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"I'm sorry I didn't come back," he whispered. "I knew you'd find me."

"Nothing to be sorry for," she assured him. "Just tell me what you need."

His answer as well came in a whisper, and almost took her breath away. Though, whether it was from surprise or desire, she was never sure. "I need to make love to you."

He pressed himself into her and caught her lips with his own. She was taken off-guard and to keep from stumbling, she grabbed onto his lapels. His lips pressed hers lithely, with firmness but not with insistence. His tongue snaked into her mouth easily, and she let her own dance against it. Still, she was surprised when he shifted her against the console and she felt him grow hard against her stomach. He pushed against her, his body acting instinctively. He broke their kiss and buried his mouth in her neck, nipping and licking at her flesh in just the perfect way. She felt herself melt a bit, and a little of her awareness gave way to want.

"Doctor…" she choked out. "Is this _really_ what you need right now?"

He pulled his lips away from her and looked at her. "Yes. It is. Is that okay?" He was deadly serious, and all she could do was stare back at him. She would never say no to him, and he knew it. He picked her up and carried her out of the console room, down three corridors to _their_ bedroom.

He laid her down on the bed and pulled her tunic up over her head. She watched him wrestle himself out of his suit jacket, tie, shirt and shoes, and then he approached the bed again. They had only made love a couple of times at this point, and thus far, the Doctor had done all the work, so to speak. Martha was a sensual being, wanted to reciprocate, wanted to _show him _how madly and hopelessly in love she was. She wanted to touch and taste him, so she reached up and pulled at his zip.

But he stopped her from taking any initiative, and gently insisted that he was there for her.

He sank into the bed on top of her, and the man who had been near-catatonic five minutes before kissed her with a passion she wouldn't have thought he could muster just now. He helped her out of her grey dress and kissed her all over. Every inch of her body was alive with a caress from his lips for what felt like days.

At long last, he whispered her name and was inside her. As he moved, he held her tighter than he had ever done before, and seemed to need her more. He was intense, every move he made was fueled by grief. He was not oblivious to her climaxing, but it did not seem enough for him – it spurred him on, like a taste of something sweet that only makes one want more. She came again, and then again, and then again until she'd lost count, and each time more powerfully than the last. He told her over and over and over again that he loved her and needed her, and finally, after what seemed to Martha an epic inner-struggle, he let himself go. When he finally came, it seemed to turn him inside out. His groan filled the room and his body seemed stretched to the limit. His face twisted in a way that was unusual for him, as though the release were coming from somewhere different. It could have been minutes or days or hours that passed, while Martha took in every sight and sound and feeling. Tonight, every detail seemed meaningful, even the exhausted exhale he gave when he was spent.

He pushed himself over on his side, and she rolled over on her side to face him. He wrapped her up in his rubbery arms, and told her again how much he loved her. She might have wept from the intensity of his encounter, the sheer brimming emotion of it, from the love he had shown her; she might have wept for the time they had wasted in living separated lives and the feelings she had harboured for so long that had torn her up inside.

But tonight, she fought it off. It felt good, but it was unsettling. Why the driving intensity? Why had he told her this morning that he loved her _no matter what happens?_ This was not the time for tears of frustration – she wanted and needed to be strong. She knew that his forceful and dauntless lovemaking tonight had everything to do with the balloon man and Jane Doe (who she couldn't help but believe were connected), and that scared her. What was their connection with the Doctor? And even more disturbingly, why would his anxiety over them translate to really powerful sex? She had no sense of the danger, she had no idea what was at stake, and someone she loved was clearly wrapped up in it.

If she asked any questions now, or indeed said anything at all, she knew she would cry. So she kept silent. She wanted to force him to promise to tell her the truth in the morning. She would have loved to raise hell about how she was his partner _and _his lover now and she deserved to know what was going on. But she could not. And before long, both hearts were beating slowly and she felt him fall into sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**THIS CHAPTER IS SHORT, BUT REVEALING.**

* * *

EIGHT

It had been a while since he'd been here. Martha Jones had been occupying most of this space in his mind recently, especially during then night when it mattered most. But a rift was open, his wounds laid bare. All bets were off.

A girl stared at the sea, watched the tides roll in. Something was drawing her here. Her body belonged to this world now, and she was a slave to its magnetism.

Somehow, he could see her before she could see him. He saw her and was happy. This was not the environment he had envisioned for her – his thoughts had been decidedly more dark. He had told her of a timeless, weightless, senseless oblivion, but she had managed to find a haven here.

And then she saw him. They were little more than spectres to one another, their forms were touchless, much as they had always been. He was here, but he was not. This couldn't be real, but it was something.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"Inside the TARDIS. There's one tiny little gap left, just about to close. It takes a lot of power to send this projection – I'm in orbit around a supernova. I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye."

She reached out to him. "Can I...?"

"I'm just an image. No touch.

Bitterly disappointed, she asked, "Can't you come through properly?"

"The whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse."

"So?"

He smiled at her joke, but she did not. Part of her honestly did not care. But it was his job to care, and so the universes must continue.

"How long have we got?" she wanted to know, her voice breaking.

"About two minutes."

"I can't think of what to say."

The ensuing conversation varied. Usually it was everyday stuff: working in a shop. Babies. Home. Defender of the universe, missing persons, blah blah blah.

And this was the part he sometimes relished, sometimes hated, depending. Suddenly her body was tight with sobbing, convulsing with the pain of it. "Am I ever going to see you again?"

His hearts broke. "You can't."

"What are you going to do?"

"I've got the TARDIS. Same old life, last of the Time Lords."

"On your own?"

He could not answer that. She wouldn't like the answer anyway.

She continued to sob, still in violent tremors that kept her grief in a tight little ball. "I..." she gasped, but it's like the hill was too high to climb. So she took a running start and tried again. "I love you."

"Quite right too," he whispered, his voice heavy with emotion. "And I suppose, if it's my last chance to say it, Rose Tyler..."

After that, sometimes she faded from the beach, sometimes he did. Sometimes the tide came in and took her, sometimes the supernova consumed him. Sometimes what came out of his mouth was gibberish or in the wrong language. Sometimes he would simply wake up alone.

This time, the skies went dark around them and the moon burned orange over the sea. Rose's pink and yellow form degenerated into brown and grey, her leather coat becoming a dirty sheath, her hair going greasy and filthy against her head. Her supple cheeks and expressive eyes were suddenly sunken with malnutrition and she bared her teeth at him. She growled and wound her body up – he knew what was coming, he'd felt the wrath of her elbow to his head once before. Instinctively, he threw his left arm up to block the blow...

* * *

Martha was sleeping at intervals. She guessed it was a combination of the day's stresses and the long nap she had taken that would not let her body relax. She stared at the ceiling and tortured herself over various things, some of them to do with the Doctor, some of them not. Occasionally, she would fall asleep, but she'd only dream of Cybermen or Jane Doe or that awful Bretton, and then she'd be awake again.

It was during one of her waking moments, worrying, oddly, over her supply of clean socks, when she felt the left fist of a Time Lord crash down upon her face. She shreiked and sat up, and immediately began shaking him awake.

"Doctor! Doctor!" she cried out. "Wake up!"

He sat up with a start and seemed to look around, realise where he was, then he buried his head in his arms. He'd had a nightmare, she could see. She couldn't even begin to imagine the horror contained in the nightmares of a Time Lord. She stroked his shoulder and back, and it was a few minutes before she realised he was crying.

Eventually, he calmed a bit, and he spoke to her. His voice was muffled, but she understood. "Martha, I have to tell you something."


	9. Chapter 9

**REMEMBER AT THE BEGINNING, I SAID THAT TO PULL THIS STORY OFF, I'D HAVE TO DO A BIT OF RETCON, CHANGING OF THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE CHARACTERS? WELL, HERE IT COMES. IT'S A MINOR DIFFERENCE WITH MAJOR CONSEQUENCES. THAT'S JUST FAIR WARNING. ENJOY!**

* * *

NINE

He sat back against the headboard and took a deep breath. "Just bear with me, okay? I swear it's important, what I'm about to tell you."

"Okay."

"We've talked about the battle of Canary Wharf before because your cousin was there," he said. "But I've never told you – that's the day..." he choked.

"Go on," she said, taking his hand.

"That's the day I lost Rose."

Martha was a bit surprised. "Oh," she said, her eyes opening wide. "Okay."

"See, when you travel between universes, and you cross the void, the void leaves you contaminated. It's like parts of it cling to you. And that's true of anything, human or Dalek, living or dead, organic or inorganic. Void particles attach to anything and everything. But the void likes to be cohesive. It does not like letting things out, and so whenever it can, it sucks its particles back into its centre, and whatever the particles are attached to. With me?"

"Yeah." Martha reminded herself that he'd promised all of this was relevant, and she resisted the urge to ask why the hell he was telling her this now.

"All of the Daleks and Cybermen that were spreading over the Earth at that time, they had come through the void in some form or another, so I just opened the portal in Canary Wharf and sucked them all back in. The problem was that both Rose and I had crossed the void also, so it was trying to suck us in as well. We were holding onto these handles, we were both pulled off our feet, but we were holding on... and Rose let go, just for a moment, and lost her grip. At the very last second, her father appeared and grabbed her, but they were swept off their feet. All I knew..." his voice caught then. He swallowed hard and tried to keep his focus. "All I knew was that they disappeared. Pete had a device around his neck that _could_ have brought them to the parallel universe where he lived, and I had chosen to believe that they made it to the other side before the void took them."

"They probably made it, Doctor," Martha told him, stroking his arm. "They're probably fine."

As he stared into her, his eyes filled with tears again. She said nothing, but she had the feeling she was about to hear something awful.

"The last conversation I had with her was... so stupid, like children," he said, staring at the mass of blankets in his lap. "We were about to save the world by opening the portal to hell, and it never once occurred to me that one of us might die, that we might never..."

"Doctor, we never know when it's the last time," she whispered. "No one knows – it's not your fault."

"I never got to say goodbye, Martha," he croaked. "I never thanked her for being with me, I never told her how much she meant to me. There were plenty of moments when I could have, but I never did."

He was fighting down another set of tears, and it was with great effort that he continued.

"And after it happened, I looked for a tiny hole between universes, any weak spot or crack where I could just have a peek, but I found nothing. I'd done such a great job of sealing up the walls that it shut me out entirely. I just figured... I would never know the truth."

She waited. There was nothing to say just now.

"Once I gave up on that, I began having this recurring dream," he told her. "At first I thought it was a psychic thing, like somehow I _knew_ that Rose was okay on the other side of the void. I would see her on the beach with her family, and she didn't know I was there. Then I began to realise that it was a coping mechanism; I wanted to believe it so badly that it manifested in my brain somehow."

Martha nodded. All of this made sense to her.

"And then the dream began to change, the scenario changed. I would appear to her on that beach like a ghost, just to say goodbye. The clock is ticking and we have limited time, and she tells me she loves me, and just as I'm about to say it back, something happens that stops me. Every time."

"Oh my," she sighed. What a horrible, constant reminder of his failing. His own mind was torturing him in his sleep.

"But you helped me get past that, Martha," he told her. "In the weeks after you came on board, that dream became less and less frequent, until it went away altogether. I felt like I had been given a reprieve, like I was no longer being punished for whatever I'd done to cause... I don't know, Rose's exile or her unhappiness or whatever. Like the universe had forgiven me and I could be myself again."

He gazed at her with sorrow in his eyes.

"You had the dream again just now didn't you?" she asked, moving closer to him to stroke his hair. "You thought you were done, but it dragged you back in."

"Yes," he whispered. "I had the dream again because I saw Rose this morning. And now I know the truth. And how hideously I have wronged her." His voice was barely holding on. In fact, his entire being, all of his composure was barely holding on. He held his breath and waited for Martha to make the connection.

She thought back to the night before. The Doctor's words came back to her. _There is no time, no matter, no light... A sentient being in the void... they'd go mad. Actually, mad doesn't cover it._

Slowly, it dawned on her. And it was only slow because she didn't want to believe it. But it was staring her in the face, and it was right there in the Doctor's eyes. "Jane Doe," she gasped, and her own tears, once more began to fall.

* * *

No words were spoken in that room for the rest of the night. They cried together, wiped each other's tears, they held each other, but did not speak. Both of them wanted to, but there was nothing to say. No words did any sort of justice to this situation, or, the Doctor felt, to Rose.

As the minutes passed and turned into hours, Martha came to an understanding. When he had kissed her that morning and told her he loved her _no matter what happens_, and then his devastation had manifested into such voracious lovemaking – she now saw his motivation. No more mistakes, no more feelings left unexpressed, no more ambiguity. She felt she had been _shown _his love, and it answered a question that the Doctor in his infinite wisdom knew she would agonise over: now that Rose is back, what does that mean for us?

And she had no choice but to trust him, because to doubt him now might destroy her.

Eventually, they made a mutual decision to go to sleep, and so they did, hoping it would prove an escape rather than further entanglement.

And so, for conversation, they were obliged to wait for morning.

When Martha awoke, the Doctor was not in the room. She was strangely relieved. She hoped that seeing him for the first time today already dressed and ready would help open up the lines of communication. New day, clean slate, life is normal. Maybe.

She put on tan cargo pants and a maroon tee-shirt (to hell with these bloody Victorians) and went to the console room. He was there on the stool, dressed to the nines, including brainy specs, staring into the TARDIS's monitor. Images were going by at a breakneck pace as the Doctor's fingers flashed over some of the nearby controls.

"Hello," she said, sidling up next to him.

She hadn't expected him to take his attention away from the screen, but he did. He looked at her and smiled, wrapping his arm around her waist. "Hello," he said, pulling her close. "I've made coffee. Thought we could both use it."

"Mm, maybe later," she said, leaning into him. "What are you doing?"

"Surfing the eternet," he told her, going back to his screen.

"You mean the Ethernet?

"No, _eter_," he enunciated. "Like eternity. It's like the internet except it crosses time and spatial barriers. It sees time and space as a whole. Damn!" he exclaimed.

"What's wrong?"

"Well, every time I get close to something, I hit a firewall or an encryption. It's like something is trying to keep me from finding this bloke," the Doctor said. "Speaking of which, what did you find out yesterday? Was Luke able to help?"

"Erm, yes, but can I ask a question first?"

"Sure."

"Why are we trying so hard to locate the man in the balloon? I mean, what's the connection?"

"If he is responsible for the Cyber invasion, then he's the one who opened the void. And when the Cybermen fell out over the Isle of Dogs, so did Rose. I need to know _how_ he got the void to open and why they fell backwards through time. That will tell me how long she was in there."

He went back to the screen. A pop-up displayed the message, "Warning: danger of paradox."

"What?" he squeaked at it. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Doctor," she sighed, trying to take his attention away. "How will that help us, knowing how long she was in there?"

"It just will."

"Tell me."

He looked at her, mouth open, at a loss.

"Look, I know what this is, okay? You are punishing yourself, and you want to know exactly how long Rose was in the void because you want to know _exactly_ how badly you screwed up. You just want to flog yourself, and that way lies disaster. I won't let you swim in this, Doctor. Let's just find a way to help her."

"But how did she fall six-hundred-odd feet and survive? She should have been killed, and broken every bone in her body in the process," he persisted.

"So?"

More images flashed by on the screen, and then stopped. Another warning popped up. "Timeline violation. Please do not research further."

The Doctor cursed and pressed on looking for information.

"So, I suspect she could have spent some of that time in a void ship," he said, taking off his glasses for emphasis. "That's an extension of the void – bigger on the inside than on the outside, contains an infinite amount of void space and foreign matter inside. Those things can physically _land _on Earth. But someone had to have created it and put her in it. If that's the case, then we might be dealing with an intergalactic terrorist with _unfathomable_ power, Martha. And, if he knew Rose, he might have been at Canary Wharf, which means he can travel in time, and that makes him even more dangerous!"

"Fine, okay. But _Rose!_ Doctor, I know that you want to hunt down the bad guys like you always do, but all that's doing is keeping you from having to go back to that convent and see her," Martha said, trying to sound sympathetic and firm at the same time. She noticed another warning flash across the screen. "You need to _control_ something, to go after something that's within your grasp because what's happened to Rose is so far off-the-charts dreadful that not even you can wrap your head around it. But my instinct tells me that _she _needs to be our first priority. Regardless of how she got into that void, regardless of how she got out, she needs our help. And I can't do it without you."

He exhaled loudly and stared at the floor contemplatively.

The last warning that had appeared upon the screen beeped at him, asking him to acknowledge. He looked at it blankly.

"Doctor, even the eternet is warning you off this train of inquiry," Martha said, gesturing at the screen. "There's all these warnings telling you to stop. Please. Just stop. Help me."

He stared again at the floor.

"I can't see her again like that, Martha," he whispered.

"I'm sorry, but you have to," she said. She took her place again at his side, and this time he wrapped both arms around her. She kissed the top of his head. "I'll be with you, it will be fine. And then after we save Rose, you can hunt down the bad guys if you want, okay?"

"Promise?"


	10. Chapter 10

TEN

Martha decided, after all, that she could, in fact, use a cup of coffee. And also a stiff shot of Bourbon, but it was only eight in the morning, so she figured she'd let that one slide. So the two of them went down the hall to the kitchen and had a small breakfast together.

"Is there anything bothering you that I don't know about?" she asked, seeing him chewing his toast with a very furrowed brow.

"I'm a bit worried about that rip over the Isle of Dogs," he said. "I think it's just leakage, I mean, it's not like there's anything harmful absolutely gushing into this world, but void stuff is a contaminant. A sprinkling over London over the past six months to a year is not likely to have had much effect, but by your time? That entire area could be closed down as a war zone."

"Well, how do we seal it?"

The Doctor noted, and enjoyed, the fact that she phrased the question as "we".

"Well, I don't think it will be easy," he told her. "Remember I told you that the void doesn't like pieces of itself being spread about, and that when it was open in 2006, it sucked in all the particles that it could?"

"Yeah."

"Well, now it's _leaking_. When I detected the rip the other day, I distinctly detected a _seepage_ of energy, not a consumption. That means the polarity has been reversed somehow – blimey, what could be strong enough to reverse the magnetism of the void between universes? Anyway, normally, I'd say we'd have to plug it up with whatever was lost, but I don't think we can do that now because it's not attracting void stuff, it's repelling it."

Martha focused on one phrase. "Plug it up with whatever was lost?"

He looked at her tight-jawed, eyes blazing.

"Yikes. Well, then," she said. "It's a good thing that's not an option anymore." Not that she could any more realistically picture the Doctor tossing Rose into a dimensional rip than she could a Panda bear marrying a goat, but it still was a disturbing thought.

"Trouble is, I have no other ideas of how to seal that type of rift," he told her. "It's like dry-wall. When you get a hole in dry-wall, how do you fix it?"

"More dry-wall."

"Exactly. But what would you do if pieces of the dry-wall were turning to liquid and leaking out? Or lost gravity and started drifting apart? Among other things, it's like putting your finger in a dyke. The only effective way to stop a problem like that is to be inside the wall and shove something much bigger into the hole from the other side."

"Inside the wall? Are you saying we'll have to go into the void?"

"Not unless you'd like to stay for an extended holiday," he shrugged. "And as Rose has shown us, the jet-lag is rather dreadful."

"What about the TARDIS? Wouldn't it protect us?"

"The TARDIS is sentient as well, Martha," he said quietly. "She'd be driven mad just like any one of us."

Martha stopped to contemplate the idea of an insane TARDIS. She made a mental note to ask the Doctor about what that might be like, once the danger of it actually happening was completely over.

"I have an idea that might work," the Doctor said, pulling himself from some sort of reverie. "It's going to mean you're on the ground and I'm in the air for a while, and we'll need to recruit some outside help."

"Okay. What do you need from me?"

He pulled her to her feet and started to lead her by the hand out of the kitchen and down the corridor to the console room. As they walked, he explained, "You are going to go back to the inn and find Luke. Ask him more about the Cyber invasion – try to find out where they were holed-up, where some of the action went down and all that. Your first goal is to try to find pieces of the Cybermen – arms, legs, torso, anything. Second goal is to pick up debris from the area around where the leak is."

"What sort of debris?"

"Anything. Sacks of rubbish, discarded cartwheels, chunks of metal. And the longer it looks like it's been sitting there, the better. A brick fallen from a building is good. And you might start with the alleyways behind smith shops and masons' workhouses if there are any. Anything that can rot is no good, it doesn't last long enough to work."

"All right, maybe I can get some of the novices from the convent to do that. Then what do we do with it all?"

"Bring it back to the stable at the convent and wait for me," he said, smiling.

"And what will you be doing in the meantime?"

"I'm going to try to work out what caused the polarity to reverse," he told her. "If I can, then there's a small chance I can shift it back. Though whatever caused it is bound to be pretty complex." He tugged at the hair on the back of his head.

"But then you'll have to plug it up," she gulped. "Won't you?"

"Yes," he told her. "That's why I need you on the ground."

* * *

Sister Micheline was immensely glad to see her, though she eyed Luke with the suspicion which she harboured for most strange men.

Martha visited Rose, who was lying on her back staring wide-eyed at the ceiling like a corpse today. Though she was careful not to touch her, Martha sat with her for about thirty minutes, spoke to her about the Doctor, tried to reach her with familiar words, and for the first time since Rose had been expelled from the void, called her by her real name. Only this seemed to spark anything. Rose turned her head brusquely and seemed to stare at Martha for about ten seconds, and then she returned to her original position.

"How do you know her name is Rose?" asked Sister Micheline with wonder in her voice.

"The Doctor is good," Martha said simply.

Then Martha explained what the Doctor needed: debris from the northern part of the Isle of Dogs. Sister Micheline offered a few of the novices, as well as several children from the orphanage, including Phillip. She gave cross-streets and told them to begin there, and to fan out gradually from there. She told them everything the Doctor had told her, about longer-lingering items and not bringing back anything that could rot. They were all to meet back at the convent no later than four o'

"Now, what good is this going to do?" Luke asked, trailing behind Martha as they walked briskly away from the convent. He had agreed, yet again, to give up a days' business in order to help Martha. She knew that she and the Doctor both owed him a big favour when this was all over, though she wasn't sure they'd be able to compensate for what he'd lost monetarily.

"I'm not sure, Luke," Martha said to him. "If you'd rather just tell me what you know and go back to work, that's absolutely fine. I can get the novices to help me."

"No, I'd rather do this," he said with a big smile on his face. "It's just, it's a bit grotesque looking for body parts. Even if they are metal."

Her 21st century garb was attracting stares, but she was used to it now, and today it didn't bother her. Today, as opposed to yesterday when Bretton had angered her so much, she knew what was happening, had a task to accomplish, she now had a fairly coherent Doctor to turn to, and she had hope that the problem might actually get solved now.

Suddenly she stopped walking and faced Luke, who almost ran smack into her. He pulled her into a doorway so that they wouldn't be in the way of passers-by. "I was thinking," she said. "Who's in charge around here? I mean, if the Cybermen were killed or defeated somehow, wouldn't they know about it? Even if that man in the balloon did something to them, there had to have been, like, _bodies_ lying about, yeah?"

"I suppose. But what could they tell us?"

"Where they stashed the pieces. They didn't just throw them into a black hole."

"All right, better question: _why_ would they tell us?"

"Leave that to me," she said.

* * *

Six hundred feet above the Isle of Dogs hung a blue police box, mercifully cloaked by a perception filter from the prying eyes of tittering Victorians. Far below, nuns and children were gathering random pieces of junk to bring back to the convent for a reason they could not say. But they knew that it was exciting and different, so they did it, giggling and chattering all the while.

The Doctor was allowing the leakage from the rift to flow over the TARDIS' receivers. On the screen, equations appeared in thousands of different languages, and he couldn't believe he hadn't noticed the polarity switch before. He'd been so caught up in trying to work out what it was that he hadn't bothered to look at the magnetism factors.

At this point, he still had it in mind that the man in the balloon had been responsible for opening the rift and probably for the reversal as well. But Martha was right – even the eternet, which had perspective over all time and space, was warning him off investigating that man, so he was on his own. At least for now.

As numbers and figures flew past, something caught his eye.

"No, no, wait a minute," he said out loud. "Let's go back."

He froze the screen and scrolled back and put on his glasses. He squinted, then squinted some more. Finally, he was sure that he was right.

Equations indicating the alternate universe, Pete's World, were popping up in the void's natural structure, and attached to them, dimensional repellers, meant to create a bubble impenetrable to void stuff. Their appearance in tandem could only mean one thing.

"Pete Tyler, you daft genius," he said flatly. "That stupid trinket of yours."

When Rose had got sucked into the void, she had been riding in the arms of her father. Pete had the universe-jumping device around his neck, and most likely, he was pressing the button as they were taken off their feet. He must have lost his grip on Rose just at the wrong moment, causing them to get separated – he wound up on the other side, Rose wound up consumed by darkness.

The nature of the device is to _flout_ the void, rip through it, keep it from touching the traveller. Pete must have still had hold of Rose's arm or wrist, because the device confused the void. The Doctor had never thought of the device as giving off any energy, but it must have done, because some of it was clinging to Rose. Immediately, the void must have begun rejecting that energy, and with it, Rose. She must have been tossed about inside the void for God knows how long before being spat out on Earth. He still didn't know why she'd fallen backwards in time, but it didn't matter now.

He felt his body tighten with that familiar flow of adrenaline, the excitement of knowing that by Jove he's got it! He threw up one of the floor panels and began dashing around beneath.

* * *

"Hello, I'm Luke Montgomery and this is Martha Jones," Luke said to the constable at the front desk. "We're here to speak to someone specific."

"And who might that be, son?" the man asked, sprightly, but suspicious.

"Well, frankly, whomever was charged with investigating the armoured attack at Christmas," Luke said carefully. Then he added, "We may have some further information regarding the man in the balloon."

"That inquiry has been closed," the constable practically shouted. "Now get off, the both of you."

"Oh, I think the detective will be _very _interested in what we have to say," Martha interrupted, silkily. "Especially when he finds out what we know about _him_." She stared at the constable with deep meaning in her eyes.

The constable eyed her back. He considered her, then said, "You don't know anything."

"I know plenty, sir, and I think you might be privy to what I'm talking about as well," she said. Again, she looked at him with wide, meaningful eyes. The man shifted uncomfortably.

At last, he said, "Very well." He disappeared through a door.

Luke looked at Martha with amazement. "Martha! That's blackmail! What in God's name do you know?"

"Absolutely nothing," she told him. "But there's always something, isn't there?"

"Apparently!" Luke exclaimed, delighted.

When the constable re-appeared, he was followed by a larger man in a tweed suit. Martha thought absently that the man must be positively sweltering in those clothes.

"Yes?" asked the man.

"Are you the detective who investigated the armoured attacks at Christmas?" Martha asked.

"The name is Decker. What do you want?"

"Well, Mr. Decker, we were wondering what happened to all the suits of armour," she said, trying to make the request sound as innocent as possible.

"What do you need to know that for?"

She looked at Luke. He improvised. "Er, I'm in the metal trade and I reckoned this might be a good way to come by some cheap materials." This actually sounded more like a question than a statement, and Martha was fairly certain that Decker didn't buy it, but it was a level try.

He looked Luke over, then looked Martha over. She could see the flicker of wonder come into his eyes when he realised what she was wearing, but he said nothing about it. "The armour was taken from the city. It's gone."

"Oh, right then," Martha said brightly. "Taken by whom? The city must have had to hire cargo carriers of some sort. If you could give us the name of the company, then we'll get out of your hair."

"They're out of business."

"A name then, would be fine. People are easy enough to track down. He's bound to be working with another cargo company now."

Decker stared at her, and she stared back, unwavering and smiling slightly. She was trying to project friendly tenacity and she was fairly certain she was succeeding... at least in the area of tenacity.

"Look, I don't know the name, I don't know where he went. The suits of armour are just gone, aren't they? Now please leave me alone," Decker said to them. It was clear that he was nervous and angry, though his voice remained even.

"Mr. Decker," Martha said softly. "I think that you and I both know that those things were not suits of armour. And if you insist that they were, then as a law-abiding citizen of this great city, I must ask you, what happened to the bodies inside? Who were they, and what did you tell their families when you had them carried out of the city to be buried in some unmarked grave by cargo cart?"

Both Decker and Luke looked at her with surprise. Decker's surprise registered more terror; Luke's, admiration.

"Good," she said calmly. "I'm glad that we can all agree that they were actually mechanical men from another world. That being the case, I'm fairly certain that this department did not hire a cargo company to have them removed from the city, as that would have aroused suspicion as to their true nature. Rather, you would have used the department's own man-power and stashed them somewhere in London. Now tell me where that is, or I will start having to ask questions of possible witnesses, and you will very soon find widespread panic on your hands."

Decker pulled at his collar and Martha knew she had him on the ropes. It wasn't the most ethical thing to do, but this wasn't even her time, and it's not like she had intergalactic knowledge, mind reading skills or psychic paper. She had to rely on her purely human wits – which were considerable, she thought, with satisfaction.

"Follow me," Decker finally said, leading them out of the police station.


	11. Chapter 11

ELEVEN

Traipsing about London through history was a fascinating endeavour. She had been playing a little game with herself, trying to recognise places around the city and work out where future landmarks would eventually be in relation to buildings already there...

But _this_ was a whole new breed of weird. As far as she knew, the London Underground would not be in service until 1864. So _why_ was there a tunnel in Bayswater here in 1852 apparently set to become a Tube station? Also, in her day, the Bayswater station is mostly open-air. At the moment, it was a short tunnel, the digging still had not reached daylight, and clearly Mr. Decker had his finger in a few people's pies because when he pulled the plug up from the manhole cover concealing the tunnel, light shined in on pile upon pile of Cyberman parts.

She sighed. "Oh what I wouldn't give for a mobile phone now," she sighed.

"What?" asked Luke.

"Look, I fulfilled my part of the bargain," Decker said, backing away slowly. "I hope I can trust you to keep this little secret between us."

"Whatever. Go back to your cosy little office, Mr. Decker, we'll take it from here," Martha answered, rolling her eyes. He walked away from them without another word.

"Now what do we do?" asked Luke.

"How do you transport your fabrics when you come into town?"

"I have a wagon," he said. "I hire out storage space for it near the inn when I'm in London."

"Do you think you have enough fabrics to cover up a wagon full of metal body parts?"

Luke smiled.

* * *

Sister Micheline was shooing novices and orphans out the door of the stable while a few of the older boys stacked the last of the junk that they had collected.

"Go, go!" she was shrieking. "This place is chock full of rubbish, the last thing we need is you lot milling around when you should be saying your afternoon prayers anyhow! Now go!"

A few of the novices asked to stay and pray for Rose (they were all very happy to know her name), but Sister Micheline brushed them all out, promising that God would hear them even if they were not crowded about the patient's bed.

When the boys had finished, she dismissed them and stood in the middle of the stable between the stalls and looked around. She wrung her hands and kissed her rosary hoping that Martha knew what she was talking about, and that this Doctor was more than just a skinny man with a daft plan. How else could they justify all this rubbish to the Monsignor? The novices and orphans had come through in spades, and five of the empty stalls were jammed to the ceiling. Wagon wheels enough to caravan the twelve tribes across Asia, enough brick to build themselves a new cathedral, bent kitchen instruments, buckets, pots, pieces of chairs, a couple of old church pews that a nearby chapel had discarded, and the most interesting of all, an unfinished stone statue found behind a sculptor's workshop, rejected because the statue's left shoulder had broken off. Sister Micheline did not like it – it didn't have a face yet, and it disturbed her.

She began to pace inside the stable. It was only three o'clock, an hour before Martha had asked everyone to meet back at the convent, but Sister Micheline had stopped the flow of debris early because the place was getting crowded and there would soon be nowhere left to store these things. Now there was nothing to do but wait. She sat down beside Rose and began to read to her from a book of fairy tales.

As four o'clock neared, she heard a commotion outside. A ghastly daemonic noise was filling the air, and she could tell that the air was being displaced because she could hear dirt and leaves and branches were hitting the side of the building. Sister Micheline ran out to see what was happening and missed the fact that Rose sat up briefly and actually took notice of the grinding sound from outside.

That awful noise stopped as she rounded the corner, but she saw a tall blue box where it hadn't been before, parked in the middle of the old stockyard between the sheep pen and the chicken coop. She crossed herself and thanked Heaven there were no animals left to frighten. As she did this, some of the youngsters began poking their heads out through the convent doors and windows, and the Doctor stepped out of the box with a big smile and a pair of completely insane-looking spectacles on his face. The frames seemed to be made almost from paper, and the lenses... well, one was blue and he other was red.

_A skinny man with a daft plan. Or was a it a daft man with a daft plan? Oh, dear._

"Sister Micheline!" he cried out. He ran over and hugged her, and she would have been knocked off her feet if he didn't have such a strong grip. "So good to see you! Phillip where are you?"

The little boy stepped out of the main building. He had been watching. "Here, sir."

"Hello!" the Doctor called. "Gather four of your best friends and meet me in the stable in one minute!"

Phillip ran back into the building to obey the Doctor readily.

"Sister! The oldest boys in the orphanage, how old are they?"

"Erm, fourteen, fifteen, why?"

"I need them too! Gather as many strapping young lads as you can find and bring them down here. Have you got any rope?" he asked, putting the silly specs into his pocket. "I've got some in there, but it would take me forever to find it."

Was he really referring to that little box? How long could it take to find anything in there? "Yes, in the old pig barn," she said, rather than ask any questions.

To his surprise, the pig barn had yards and yards and yards of twine. Some wire cutters lay nearby so he used them to cut the thick twine into a long strand. He stepped on the end of the strand and wrapped the other end round his hand and tugged, just to test its length.

He took all of the twine and went back to the stable to find five boys, fourteen or fifteen years old, waiting for instructions. Likewise there were four boys around the age of eight standing by (and one girl, he noted), Sister Micheline looking at him as though he were completely mad, and about a hundred other children, nuns and novices had gathered round the periphery.

"All right, lads," the Doctor said. "Each of you needs a strand of this twine about this length. Then, you'll take one end and wrap it around about three of the slats in the wood here, and tie it off like so." He demonstrated by tying his strand around the first three planks that held the stable together. They were suspended about half an inch off the ground, so this proved to be no problem at all.

On the other side of that particular wall, everyone knew, lay Jane Doe, now known as Rose, the feral girl who had come to them eight months ago and completely upset the whole convent. The older boys had never seen her, as only the girls and Phillip had been allowed to help Sister Micheline with her care. There was, of course, an enormous amount of curiosity about her.

The boys obeyed the Doctor, and took turns cutting twine and tying off the ends to the wooden slats of the stable. The Doctor helped them tie, corrected them when they went wrong. Soon, about five to six feet of the wall had a piece of twine tied to the bottom. The boys stood at the ready, and the Doctor wrapped his piece round his hand so it was taut, and instructed the boys to do the same.

"And... just to be sure, Sister," the Doctor said. "Rose will not be touched, is that correct?"

"Not without your risking life and limb," she replied.

"Nope, not interested," he said. "All right, boys. On the count of three, I want you to pull as hard as you can. We're going to try to take out this wall! Ready? One, two three!"

The Doctor and the five boys pulled on the twine, loosening the boards considerably. Some nails came loose here and there, and pieces of rotted wood fell to the ground. Sister Micheline screamed out "Doctor! What are you doing? Oh, my!" and she turned and ran back inside the stable, the Doctor guessed, to tend to Rose, whom she knew would be upset by this. What she could do for her at this point was his best guess.

He shouted for them to stop. They all rested for a moment. He could hear Sister Micheline inside trying to comfort the girl, and he forced himself not to listen for Rose's voice, her cries, her panting – whatever she was doing to cause the nun to want her calm.

Soon enough, he shouted for the boys to pull again, and then rest. On the third try, his own slats came completely down, followed by two of the other boys'. Behind what was left of the wall, he could see Rose sitting up with her arms wrapped around her knees and her face hidden. She was breathing hard and whining incoherently, and it was killing him trying to ignore her. He could also see Sister Micheline standing on the other side of the cot looking horrified, her arms poised outward uselessly to comfort her patient, whom she knew would not be touched. The Doctor felt the same way, but there was work to be done...

The boys helped each other bring down the last of the planks. The Doctor explained that the same thing needed to be done at the head of the cot so that the girl was surrounded by open air. Again, Sister Micheline looked as though she might cry, but she did not try to stop them. The few planks on the other side came loose much more easily, and soon, Rose was surrounded by nothing. Her walls had literally come down around her. When they were all finished, she lashed out at them and snarled angrily, baring her teeth and shaking with fear and madness, but she never left her cot. The Doctor nearly burst out weeping watching her, but he reminded himself again, work was to be done.

He stepped past the cot and stood inside the stable. "All right everyone! We're going to build another wall around her. Bring me pieces of rubbish and I'll tell you where to put them."

"How will you know, sir?" asked one of the older boys.

"Because I have these!" he announced, putting on the mad blue and red glasses again. "Now come on, _allons-y_, let's do this!"

Sister Micheline watched with amazement as the children brought the Doctor pieces of literal rubbish and he looked at each piece in turn, then instructed the child where to put it. Near her, on the other side of the pew, somewhere in between. Just as often, he would say, "no good," and the children knew that meant to put it aside in a separate pile to be taken away. Often he would remind them to leave a space for him on the inside side of the cot.

After about a quarter of the junk had been moved either to Rose's bedside or to the other heap, Sister Micheline noticed with wonder that Rose had begun to watch them as well. She eyed the children, she eyed the Doctor, she watched them move back and forth. It was the first thing resembling lucidity that she had seen in the girl's eyes, ever. All she had ever done before was try to attack people, resist their touch, their help, and when they were not specifically attending to her, she ignored them and seemed to retreat back into her self. Whatever the Doctor was doing, it seemed to be working,

At last, after a good three quarters of an hour, all of the debris had been piled around Rose. The wall was at least five feet deep and three feet high. The Doctor circled the enclosure and looked at it earnestly through his red and blue glasses. He adjusted some things here and there, and Rose watched him intently.

Finally, he stood in the space that had been left for him, took off the glasses and looked at her with his own eyes. She looked back. "Oh Rose," he sighed. "I'm so sorry. I hope you can forgive me someday."

Sister Micheline half-expected the girl to open her mouth and speak, such was the rapport seeming to form between her and the Doctor, but Rose continued to be wordless. The Doctor slowly reached out to her, never taking his eyes from her eyes.

But when his fingers made contact, she jolted backward once again, knocking a portion of the rubbish wall to the ground. The boys instinctively began to rebuild it, and the Doctor nodded at them in recognition.

Sister Micheline was impressed that Rose had not snarled this time nor shown any wild tendencies. The Doctor, though, had not acheived his goal.

"She's still not ready," the Doctor muttered.

"Ready for what? I don't understand," Micheline asked. "Doctor, can you tell me what you're doing? You've calmed her considerably!

Absently, he answered in his own rapidfire Doctorese, "I was hoping to form a field of void residue around her, though normally the process of weaning her away from the void's hold would take months, even years, but I figured if I could calm her enough to touch her, I could speed the process..." when he looked at the nun, she was squinting at him suspiciously.

"Void residue?" she asked.

"You know what? Never mind," he told her. "Just call it new age medicine. It's... er, Chinese, all right?"

"Whatever you say."

"Fortunately, I do have a plan B."

"You do?"

"Of course. I'm the Doctor, I always have a plan B."

He extracted the sonic screwdriver from his breast pocket and adjusted some of the settings. "Sister, I need you to take this. Stand right where you are and aim it at Rose. When I give you the word, just press this button and hold it until I tell you to let go, all right?"

"What will it do?" she asked, taking the silly thing in her hand. She felt the weight of it and ran her thumb over the button.

The Doctor smiled. "Oh, you'll be amazed!"

Sister Micheline did as asked, and when the Doctor said, "Press it," she obeyed. Blue tendrils of what looked like lightning began to form. From one piece of rubbish to the next, to the next and the next, crossing the space between parts of the wall over Rose's cot, passing through Rose herself and even connecting with the Doctor. He could hear the entire convent gasp with wonder as the whole enclosure glowed blue and Rose dropped her hands to her sides, still watching the Doctor.

Once again, he put the glasses back on, but was not satisfied. "Let go," he told Sister Micheline. She did, and the blue light disappeared and the children all groaned with disappointment. Nuns and novices all around crossed themselves, unsure of what they had seen, and the Doctor gritted his teeth and grabbed a metal spitoon from the top of the pile and hurled it at the opposite wall in anger.

"Doctor!" Sister Micheline exclaimed.

"It's still not enough!" he screamed.

"Children, get back inside!" she called out. The other nuns helped to round up the orphans, and soon all the little voices had dissipated from the stockyard.


	12. Chapter 12

**JUST FYI: I'M NOT EXCEEDINGLY HAPPY ABOUT THE EXPLANATION OF WHY THEY'RE BUILDING UP A VOID AROUND ROSE... IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE IN MY HEAD, LIKE THEY'RE WEANING SOMEONE OFF OF A BAD DRUG, BUT I FOUND THAT I COULDN'T FIND A GOOD METAPHOR OR WHATEVER... SO PLEASE BEAR WITH ME!**

* * *

TWELVE

Sister Micheline didn't know what to say or do for the Doctor in his rage, and it was just as well. He didn't want to be comforted, not by her. The two of them sat in a brooding silence with Rose for what felt like hours until the sound of a gate nearby distracted their focus. They both went to check out the noise.

The corral locks at the back of the stockyard were being opened. Luke Montgomery sat atop a cart pulled by a strong-looking brown horse, and beside him sat Martha Jones.

"Sorry we're late! Long story," Martha called.

Sister Micheline spoke to Luke, though Martha couldn't hear what they were saying, she kept her eyes on the Doctor. He was distraught, she could see it from a mile away. Soon enough, Luke took the nun back behind the cart to show her the cargo. She could hear the sister protesting, but again, she paid no attention.

The Doctor reached up to her and helped her down. They hugged hard – he squeezed her with frustration and nearly cut off her air. "What's wrong?" she asked, when he finally let go. His embrace was not that of a calm Doctor.

"Co me here," he said. He led her, squeezing her hand just a touch too hard, over to the stable, which looked decidedly different to when she had last seen it.

"Oh my God, what happened?" she exclaimed.

"I needed to get the debris all around her and I couldn't have a wall in the way. And since I can't just pick her up and carry her..."

"How did you do it?"

"Teen-aged boys and some twine."

Martha noticed a change in Rose as well. She used the small opening that the kids had left in the wall of junk to get as close as she dared and examine Rose's eyes. To her surprise, the patient stared right tback. "She's lucid," Martha gasped. "She can see me! Has she said anything?"

"No, but she's been watching me the whole time," he muttered. "But she's not quite there yet. Take a look – this is what I wanted you to see."

He handed her the glasses which Martha recognised as old-fashioned 3D movie glasses. Martha looked up at him as though to ask if he were serious. His gesture said he was. She put them on and looked at Rose. Through the glasses, the space occupied by Rose's body seemed to be taken up by a swarm of black particles. Through the cloud, her features were indistiguishable and her form looked just barely humanoid. At her core, the black was solid, and at her extremities, the particles moved about a bit, like insects.

She gasped. "Is that void residue?" she asked.

"Yep," he told her quietly.

"It's like it's swallowed her!"

She glanced around at the debris surrounding the cot. It too was covered with void stuff, the energy that had been leaked from the rip over the Isle of Dogs. They had been arranged so that the items most densely contaminated by void residue were at the outside, and the least contaminated were inside, closest to Rose. "Why did you arrange this stuff that way?" she wanted to know.

"To strengthen the... cradle of void stuff, if you will," he told her. "Watch."

He extracted the sonic screwdriver and demonstrated for her what he had done minutes before, and the blue light surrounded the area. By doing this, he was creating an artificial void around Rose, and Martha could see that having the stronger particles on the outside was helping to contain the weaker within. She could also see, though, that even binding all of the particles together in this way was not creating a void solid enough to insinuate Rose's body. She was still blacker than any of the area around her – what void stuff they had was not enough.

"I see what you're trying to do," Martha said when the blue light went away. "But I don't see why."

"Well, look how much calmer she is for having been surrounded by void particles, even if it's not quite enough to create an artificial void," he said. "Right up until the moment when we began doing this, she was still... well, you know what she was like." He couldn't bring himself to put it into words.

Martha was starting to see. "So, because she was in the void for so long, she's actually more comfortable there?"

"Sort of," he said, shrugging. "The void is an unpleasant place – it's hell. It's as close a thing there is to a literal hell – no exaggeration. And it drove her mad, so I think perhaps _comfortable _may not be quite the word we're looking for. But the concentration of void stuff on her is..." he sighed. "Well, it indicates that she must have been in there for several lifetimes. Her entire body is foreign to this place – she's like a fish out of water, literally flopping around on deck. She is now more connected to the void than to our world. If we can build up the area around her enough that it will absorb her body for a bit, then maybe she'll calm down and let me touch her, and maybe I can get into her mind and repair it. But it won't work if I can't get close."

"I assume you tried to touch her already."

"Yeah. She pulled away and knocked over a section of the wall," he explained. "But she didn't growl at me, which is progress."

"Interesting the things that please us at a time like this," Martha commented, taking off the glasses. "Fortunately, I might have brought a solution."

"Did you find the Cyber parts?" he asked, excitedly, apparently having forgotten.

"Yes," she said. "In the Bayswater Tube station!"

"Must have just been a wet tunnel," he commented. "It won't be connected to anything for another ten or twelve years."

"Yeah, it was pretty mushy down there but Luke did most of the dirty work."

He hugged her hard again, this time in happiness. He picked her up off her feet. "Martha Jones, you are a star!" He set her down and stepped past all the debris. "Luke! Can you bring the cart closer?"

Luke waved, signalling that he'd heard. He took the horse by the reins and walked him over near to the stable. Sister Micheline trailed behind the cart, frowning.

"More junk, Doctor?" she asked. "What good is this doing?"

"Rose has been to hell, Sister," he told her. "And we're trying to send her back, in a manner of speaking."

The nun gasped and crossed herself. "Doctor! That's blasphemy!"

"Well, if you're just going to reject my answer, then why did you bother asking?"

Without being told what to do, Martha threw the fabric cover off the Cyber parts and began piling them up around the outside of the already formidable junk wall. She looked at them with the glasses on, and could see that their void particle concentration was equal to Rose's. Clearly, Rose and the Cybermen had been sucked in and spit out at the same time. This might actually do the trick.

The four of them, even Sister Micheline, stacked the parts up, and Rose watched them all. It didn't take long, and then they were ready to try again. Suddenly, the Doctor dashed off and disappeared into the TARDIS. He returned about two minutes later, and he seemed to be holding his hands away from his body, avoiding touching anything.

He said to Martha, "The sonic is in my inside breast pocket, can you get it out please?" She did. "I have three levels pre-set, and now it's up to you. We'll start with number three. Aim it at Rose and press that top button. When I tell you to, then press number two, and then when I tell you to, press number one."

"Gotcha."

"Now will you please put the 3D glasses on me? Sorry, I should have thought of all this stuff before."

She chuckled slightly as she put the silly things on his face and carefully curved the hooks around his ears.

He thanked her, and then, bizarrely, he gently blew on his hands and they began to glow green. He walked into the space left and got close to Rose. "Do it," he said to Martha.

She pressed the button as he had showed her, and the whole area lit up with blue lightning, then sparks, and then the whole thing melded together into one large, blue, glowing bubble. Inside, the Doctor actually sat down on the cot and then carefully reached out to her. Miraculously, she allowed him to touch her with absolutely no flinch nor fight, and he placed his glowing green hands on either side of her head. Soon enough, her head glowed green as well, and the Doctor called out, "Martha, number two!"

She switched her finger to the second button, and the blue bubble dimmed, but the green glow around Rose grew brighter. And then, "Number one, Martha, until I tell you to stop!"

Again, she changed setting, and again, the blue dimmed as the green brightened. They stayed like this for the longest period of time thus far, but finally, he said, "You can stop now," and Martha let go of the controls. He took his hands away from Rose and the green light went out. The Doctor took the glasses off and searched Rose's face.

Rose looked back at him, and flatly said, "Hello, Doctor."

Martha and Sister Micheline both burst out crying at these two simple words. The Doctor followed suit, and made a move to embrace Rose. But to everyone's surprise, without protesting, without flinching or pulling away, Rose simply lay down on her cot and closed her eyes. Crestfallen, the Doctor stood up and backed away. "Come on," he whispered. "I guess she needs some rest." His voice nearly broke as he spoke, and Martha's heart nearly broke as well.

"What do we do now, Doctor?" asked Sister Micheline.

"I'll need all of this rubbish loaded into the TARDIS," he said, swallowing down his emotion. "We've still got work to do."

"Sure," she said. "What's a TARDIS?"

"It's that blue thing over there," he said gesturing toward the chicken coop.

"You want all this stuff in there?" she asked, crinkling her nose.

"Trust me, it will be fine," he said. "I have a little project I need to finish."

They each each gathered an armload and went toward the TARDIS. Luke and the nun both had appropriately awed reactions to the size of the interior, but the Doctor and Martha were in no mood to entertain them, so the Doctor simply said, "Just drop it anywhere," as he began circling around the console.

"Er, I'll be right with you, all right?" Martha said to Luke and Micheline.

She wandered back to the large bedroom she shared with the Doctor. She opened her wardrobe. She had never seen Rose standing up, but based on the length of the cot, Martha guessed that Rose was a few inches taller than she was, and due to malnutrition, much, much thinner. Whatever Martha chose for her would look awkward, but it would be better than the smock she was wearing now, and at least she'd have clean knickers and some shoes.

She chose a pair of white linen drawstring trousers and a black tee-shirt. She added a pair of black rubber flip-flop sandals to the pile of clothes in her arms, and found a pair of brand-new underpants still in the packaging and placed it on top. She walked back out to the cot where Rose was sleeping and left the pile of clothing near her feet.

Then she continued to help load all the Cyber parts, wagon wheels, bricks, et cetera, into the TARDIS.


	13. Chapter 13

**THIS IS QUITE A SLEEPY LITTLE CHAPTER. REUNION SCENES CAN SO EASILY GET BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION - I WENT FOR THE MINIMALIST APPROACH. I HOPE YOU FIND IT QUIETLY EMOTIONAL AND NOT BORING. SORRY IT'S NOT EXACTLY ACTION-PACKED!**

* * *

THIRTEEN

Luke had gone back inside the convent with Sister Micheline. She had offered him supper, and he had accepted. The TARDIS was too much even for a forward-thinking bloke like him. Martha really, really wanted a shower after the Bayswater tunnel, but instead circled round the TARDIS console room. The juxtaposition of the futuristic interior coupled with the Victorian debris stuffed inside was almost comical.

"What are you going to do with all this stuff?" she asked. "We could open an antique junkyard in my time."

"It's all going back in the void if I can ever get this thing to work," he said, sonicking some wire sticking out of the latest mad-looking device he'd fashioned. "We have to spackle the hole if we're going to stop the leak."

"Oh, right," Martha said. She slid around the console to where the Doctor was standing. She put her arms around his waist. "You okay?"

He looked at her briefly, then looked away, went back to work. "Sure, why wouldn't I be?"

Martha wondered how she was going to phrase this. "Well, she didn't give you a hug, or say thank you…"

"I didn't do it for thanks," he said evenly. "I did it because… it needed to be done."

"Doctor," she said. "Come on."

He set the devices down on the console and put his arm around her. He sighed. "Martha. It would have been nice if she'd leapt up from the cot and cried and thrown her arms around me and said 'thank you Doctor, you're the best, I knew you'd rescue me, and you're so handsome,' and maybe that's sort of what I thought would happen… but it didn't. We just have to remember that she was in hell. No time, no space, no matter, no feeling… and now, she's suddenly back. I don't know if anything will ever be the same for her again.

"I suppose it won't."

"So, for the time being, she wants to sleep, and we'll let her sleep. When she wakes up, she'll see the TARDIS waiting. And _then_ she can tell me how handsome I am. I'm okay with that."

Martha smiled. "All right." She turned up her face to be kissed and he obliged. "Meanwhile, what the hell was that green glow?"

He resumed playing with the trinket. "Oh that," he said, jutting one finger in the air. "That's energy from the universe. It's one of the things that can pull a person out of or through the void. The TARDIS' heart is chock full of it. Once when Rose and Mickey and I got stuck in a different universe, the TARDIS died, all but for a little smidge of that stuff. I used that bit of energy, a bit the size of my thumbnail, to pull us through the void and get us home. It's meant to anchor us in reality, connect us to our home zone. Trouble is, the only way to grow it is to blow on it, and it saps energy away from me every time I use it. Blowing on my hands as I did? That took fifty years off my life."

"I see, I think. So the reason why you had me sort of dial down the void while you were dialling up the green stuff was… you were weaning Rose out of the void."

"Exactly."

"So, let me wrap my head around this. Making the blue void bubble around her made her feel part of something, absorbed enough to let you get close to her to touch her. The green energy from our universe, you put that in her mind, and as it got more and more into her brain, the void could be diminished because she was coming back to us and needed the void particles less and less for comfort – or whatever. We did it gradually until there was more green energy than void."

"You're very clever, Martha Jones," he smiled. "Also, the green glowy stuff, it repels void particles. It's multifunctional as far as hopping between universes."

Outside, it was night, and no light poured into the TARDIS when the door opened. Rose stepped timidly inside and looked around. She was wearing the clothes that Martha had left for her, and though her hair was still in shambles, she looked human again. Neither the Doctor nor Martha moved nor spoke as Rose took in the strange sight of metal and wood debris from the streets crowding up the TARDIS' console room. They weren't sure what she wanted or what she would do, so they just watched her as she wandered a bit, touching the junk and sometimes examining it curiously.

Eventually, she came over to where Martha was standing. "Hello," she said. "I'm Rose Tyler. And you're… Martha. Jones, is it?" she asked.

Martha smiled. "You could hear us while we were buzzing around you."

"Yes. Thank you for talking to me yesterday, calling me by my real name," she said. "I really needed to hear that. I was in there somewhere, I just couldn't get out."

"You're welcome."

"Are these your clothes?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. Could I trouble you for a hair clip? I mean, you don't have to do it right now…"

"Yes, of course."

She turned to the Doctor. "And you. Thank you for… whatever it is that you did. I never understand, but I always… you always come through."

"I'm sorry, Rose," he whispered.

"Don't be. You saved me. Again. That's all that matters."

To Martha's shock, neither one of them made any move to hug. She had expected to witness a dramatic, tearful reunion that would completely mess with her head, but nothing of the sort seemed forthcoming.

"I'll go get you a hair clip. Would you also like something to eat?" Martha asked.

Rose seemed to think about it for a moment or two. "Okay," she said finally. "That would be nice."

"What would you like?"

"Anything is fine," Rose said.

"Chips," the Doctor spoke for her. "Check the freezer."

"Sure," Martha said, leaving the room.

When Martha was gone, Rose said, "She's lovely."

"Yeah," he answered, but just barely.

A long silence ensued, and then she asked, "Are you and she…?"

He sighed heavily and then nodded very subtly, his eyes heavy.

She smiled slightly. "I'm glad you found someone. From London?"

He nodded.

"_When_ is she from?"

"Your time. She's a few years older than you, though. She's a doctor. Well, almost."

"Trust me, she's not older than me anymore," Rose said sadly. "And neither are you."

The implications of this hit him like a battering ram to the gut. He choked down some tears, then he opened his mouth to speak, but she put her hand up to stop him. "Don't say you're sorry. It's not your fault, and it doesn't matter anyway."

Another silence. She clearly did not want him to dwell on the past, and he had no idea what the future would hold, so he simply said, "I'm glad you're all right."

"Me too. And I'm glad you're all right as well."

Timidly, he asked, "May I… well, I'd like to give you a hug."

She didn't smile, but she said simply, "Okay."

He stepped toward her and put his arms around her. She felt bony and thin and weak, and he didn't squeeze her for fear of breaking her. She rested her chin on his shoulder, but it was only with uncomfortable tentativeness that she brought her arms up to return the embrace. He felt different to her as well, though he hadn't changed much. She supposed that it was she who had changed.

He let go of her. "It's not the same for you, is it?"

"How could it be?" she asked, in lieu of an answer. "I feel like everything I am was stripped away, if not in the void, then in the time after."

"I don't think that's true," he told her, smiling slightly. "The Rose Tyler I know is tough as nails."

She looked at him imploringly. Why couldn't he see? "The Rose Tyler you know is gone. Or at least in hiding."

"She'll claw her way back to the surface soon enough," he told her, leaning on the railing.

Frankly, Rose wasn't sure she'd live long enough to see that happen, even if she lived to be a hundred. But she didn't say so – she just nodded.

"Erm, is the kitchen still in the same place?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"I'm going to go see if Martha needs help."

* * *

Martha took her time with the chips. The package said to microwave them on high for 2 minutes 45 seconds, but she decided to halve the power and double the time. She put off searching for ketchup until they were finished warming, and then decided to look for other dipping sauces. She even contemplated making a small pot of chili to drizzle over them Elvis-style, but that seemed a bit much. She knew that the Doctor and Rose needed time to talk, and she didn't want to be a third wheel. Besides, she was scared to death of what this meant for _her_, and she didn't want to be in a selfish brood while there were others watching. She preferred to have her juvenile snits in private.

Just as she was salting the chips, the last step before she absolutely could not justify lingering in the kitchen any longer, she was interrupted.

"Hi," Rose said. She looked at the bottles of different sauces that Martha had extracted from the cabinets. "Wow. That's service."

Martha felt sheepish. "I wasn't sure what you'd like, so I thought I'd bring them all."

"Just some ketchup will be fine," she said. She took the plate and the bottle of ketchup and sat down at the table. She pushed out another chair to let Martha know that she wanted company.

Martha had, in her extended stay in the kitchen, boiled some water. She brought the kettle to the table, along with a box of tea bags, two mugs and the hair clip she'd brought from her vanity. She sat poured for herself and Rose.

Rose picked up the clip and tied her hair back neatly. Then she took a bite. Her eyes nearly rolled back in her head, and Martha thought she might fall off the chair. "Oh my God," she moaned. "That is so good!"

Martha couldn't help but chuckle. "Fresh from the microwave," she said. "I'm quite the gourmet chef."

"After being force-fed raw cabbage and sugar water for eight months, it tastes like filet mignon," Rose said, eyes blazing with the first real sensation she'd had since becoming lucid. "Better than filet mignon!"

"I'll bet," Martha commented. "So, how much do you remember of the last eight months?"

Chewing, Rose said, "Quite a bit, actually. I remember every single doctor or nurse or healer or whatever that came to my bedside. I'm sorry I kicked you – I hope I didn't hurt you too much. And the Doctor, I remember elbowing him in the head. I remember being held down and forced to eat and bathe. I remember the nuns reading me stories, which was very kind of them… didn't care for the Biblical ones, but the Grimm's tales were nice."

She ate a bit more, and Martha asked, nodding her head in the direction of the console room, "Did you two talk?"

Rose was silent for a bit. She seemed to be concentrating on chewing. Her silence, in fact, was so protracted, that Martha finally said, "You know what? It's none of my business, not my place to ask. Forget it."

"No, no," Rose said. "It _is_ your business, Martha, we both know that."

"He told you?"

"Only because I asked," Rose said.

"I'm sorry."

"Now, don't you start too. And no, you're not."

Martha smiled. "I'm really not."

Rose smiled back. "We talked. Sort of. But you can't just _chat_ with him. And anyway, I…"

She trailed off. Martha waited.

"…I'm not the same as I was."

"You still have time, Rose. You can find yourself again."

"What's what he said, too. He talked about the Rose he knew. But I think she might be lost."

"Then maybe you can be a new Rose. Just as good – but new." Martha hoped that this comment came off as encouraging and not self-serving.

"I suppose you're right."


	14. Chapter 14

FOURTEEN

One pot of tea and another whole package of chips later, the girls were still in the kitchen, chatting. They had swapped stories about different planets and time periods, both laughed nervously over their insane memories of Daleks. They talked about their families, ex-boyfriends, school days, mother issues, and in the process, had managed to discover that both of their mothers had slapped the Doctor on some occasion! Martha had asked, and Rose had described the Doctor before his last regeneration – raw, wounded, leather-clad. They both mused over the wonders of regeneration and getting used to a new face and a new personality, and Rose pointed out that it was weird enough just being the person who was in the room when it happened, let alone having it happen to oneself. Martha wondered aloud if she'd see the Doctor into the next phase.

"Well, he might not be as pretty the next time around," Rose said, with a twinkle in her eye. "And it will be scary. But you just have to keep reminding yourself that it's the same man. You know as well as I do that it's worth it to give him a chance."

"What are you still doing in here?" the Doctor asked, brushing into the room like a hurricane. He opened the fridge and pulled out half a sandwich and stuffed a bit into his mouth. Through a jaw full of bread and tunafish, he added, "Thought it was just gonna be a quick snack! We've got a rift to close, come on!"

The girls followed him back into the console room.

"What's the plan?" Martha asked.

"The plan is this," he said, proudly holding aloft the machine he'd been working on.

"What the hell is that?" she asked. It looked like a metal bread box with a funnel on top, and miles and miles of copper wire wrapped around the funnel.

"This is the thing that's going to reverse the polarity," he told her. "This will make the rift suck instead of leak."

Bristling a bit at those words, Martha said, "Okay." Then, to her surprise, he placed it in her hands. "What does it want with me?"

"It's up to you, Martha," he said, moving around the console, and finally moving the TARDIS. "Once the void starts pulling things in, it's going to attract anything that has void stuff attached to it, and that includes me and Rose and the TARDIS. So you'll have to do the delicate part."

But instead of explaining, he dashed out the door with an armload of rope. The girls followed him outside the TARDIS, to find that they were still parked in Victorian London, only now, on the northern end of the Isle of Dogs. Rose shook off the awful feeling that came over her. She knew that this was roughly where she had been found, feral and vicious like a wolf.

They watched him circle the TARDIS rapidly four times, pulling the rope behind him. He tied a knot at one of the corners, and then secured it with the sonic screwdriver.

"What are you doing?" Martha asked.

"Tethering the TARDIS so it doesn't get sucked into the void," he called back as he dashed away into a building. The girls followed.

They found themselves running through a pub, and then down the back stairs. The barman didn't say anything, and Martha asked, "Did you put a perception filter on us?"

"No," the Doctor said. "I bribed him to use his cellar, no questions asked."

The cellar contained what looked like a arched-over stove, which housed about fifty bottles of wine. The Doctor instructed Rose and Martha to take down the bottles and set them aside while he secured the rope.

"What will this do?" asked Rose, lining up bottles along a wooden credenza.

"This arch may look just like a stone arch, but it's really a vein of marble that digs about five hundred feet into the Earth from here. I checked, while you girls were gabbing in the kitchen. If I can bind the rope's molecules to the molecules of the marble…" he began to mutter as the sonic screwdriver buzzed. "There! Won't move now."

He ran back up the stairs, back out onto the street and into the TARDIS.

"How long is that rope?" asked Martha as he rooted around under the floor.

"About seven hundred feet. Long enough to get us up into the sky, not so long that we'll get sucked in with a rope hanging from the rift. Let's hope." He popped back up out from underneath with two more lengths of rope. "Rose, come here."

She approached him as Martha picked up the metal bread box once more and studied it. "What does this thing do?"

"Well," he said, tying one of the ropes around Rose's waist. "While I was studying the rift and the polarity and all that, I discovered that what caused Rose to be spat out of the void was her father's dimension-jumping device. It envelops the user in an energy that's meant to rip through void material, repel it. Some of it stuck to Rose, and the void began rejecting her the moment she arrived. Is that too tight?" he asked Rose, referring to the rope. She shook her head.

He began tying the other end to the TARDIS console, to a bar along one of the sides which was immovable.

"Anyway, it confused the void enough to reject, as opposed to attract, something, which made everything go all wonky and it reversed the entire magnetism of the void. Lucky the rift over the Isle of Dogs isn't any larger than it is. It could turn the whole neighbourhood into a void zone eventually." He tugged hard at the rope and told Rose to lean against the pull to make sure it wouldn't give way. She did – it held.

Then he started repeating the process on himself. "But I'm digressing a bit, because the whole point is that we needed something that had the same sort of effect to reverse the magnetism. Once I came up with the idea to heal Rose's mind with the green energy from the universe, it all seemed to make sense. That device, Martha, is what will foster that green energy. I stored some in that box, now we just have to grow it."

She pursed her lips to blow on it, as she had seen him do. "No!" he shouted. "Don't do that. That takes years off your life. I can spare it, you can't. Bring it to me."

She obliged, as he was tied to the TARDIS console now. He blew into the funnel and some of the green energy seemed to grow out of the hole at the bottom and blossom into the triangular funnel area. Martha smiled at the effect – it was beautiful and mysterious. He flipped a switch on the console and the TARDIS made its signature grinding sound. The Doctor consulted the screen from a bit far away, since the rope wouldn't let him go all the way over. But he was satisfied that they were now hovering near enough to the rift.

"Martha, go ahead and open the door," he said.

She did. She found herself looking down over the oxbow of the Isle of Dogs, 1852. She couldn't help but feel awe. He flipped another switch, and suddenly a line appeared in the sky in front of her. It was black against a navy-blue night, but it sparkled. From it, particles fell to the Earth like a light rain of wayward feathers.

"Can you see it?" he asked her

"Yes," she exclaimed. "Is that the rift?"

"Yep. The TARDIS is stretching itself rather thin at the moment. Okay, what will happen now is I'm going to flip another switch which will cause the copper wiring to glow. That is, in essence, activating a huge magnet which will augment the green stuff by about a thousand times. When that happens, you'll have about two seconds to throw the device into the rift, and then get the hell out of the way."

"Why?"

"Because as soon as that repellent energy gets into the void, it will start pulling again. All this junk will get sucked out the door, and you really don't want to be in their path. With any luck, that will be enough spackle to seal the wall, and everything will go back to normal."

"And if it doesn't?" asked Rose, with fear in her eyes.

"Then we'll think of something else," he told her. "We always do. But let's just deal with that if and as it happens, all right?"

She gulped hard and nodded.

"Ready, Martha?" asked the Doctor, putting his hand on one of the nearby controls.

She sighed. "Ready as I'll ever be."

"Okay then, _allons-y! _Martha, make sure you throw it right into that black slit!"

"Can we get closer?" she asked, getting nervous, gripping the doorjamb desperately, her knuckles white with fear.

"No, this is as far as the rope will let us go. I'm sorry, you're just going to have to aim well."

She let out a little scream of fear and frustration and then fixed her eyes on the target. The TARDIS was hanging perhapss thirty feet away, and the slit, she thought, was maybe twelve inches wide and ten feet long. The device in her hand weighed almost nothing, but that didn't help. She had never had experience with anything like this before, and she had very little confidence in her ability to accomplish this particular task.

"What happens if I miss?" she asked.

"That magnet will land on the street somewhere and pull in everything within a hundred yards that's metal," the Doctor told her.

"So, knives and blacksmith tools flying through the air, people impaled on glass-blowing poles, decapitated by their own bedpans," Martha said matter-of-factly, as her voice shook. "Wonderful. Just wanted to know."

She stared into the void and contemplated for another thirty seconds, knowing that the situation wasn't getting any better with her just standing there. She knew she just had to do it. Quite suddenly, she cried out, "Do it!" and in the next two seconds, the Doctor threw the toggle and she held the thing over her head and heaved it out the door. She kept her eye on the target, as her father had taught her to do in bowling. As soon as it was out of her hands, she closed her eyes and hopped to the side of the doorway. She didn't want to know, but she also didn't want to be knocked out the door by a flying piece of broken chair or brick.

"Martha, get down!" the Doctor screamed, and she felt something heavy whiz past her head. She dropped to the floor, and finally opened her eyes. Apparently her aim had been true, because she could feel the entire vessel tightening, resisting the pull of the void, and all of the objects that had been piled in the console room were now jamming in the doorway trying to get out. The Doctor and Rose were both screaming, both completely off their feet now, with their bodies being pulled toward the door. They had their grips wrapped around the bar on the console, and the Doctor was yelling at Rose to hold on.

The sound of air rushing filled the room as more and more pieces of debris flew past Martha. The traffic jam at the door was finally undone when the church pew rushed past and violently broke down the bottleneck of debris and caused the other wooden door of the TARDIS to splinter apart with a great explosion. Instinctively, Martha covered her head and screamed. "Doctor! How much longer?"

But he didn't hear her. She stole a glance toward the console. Rose had lost her grip, and now the only thing that stood between her and the void was a rope wrapped around her waist. To make matters worse, she was now facing the door, looking into the void, and Martha saw a dead expression on her face. Anyone else would be screaming, crying, begging for it to end, but not Rose. In the face of the void, she could not muster any emotion, as though the pull of the void had her under some type of thrall.

The Doctor had let one hand go and was tugging at Rose's rope with it, and he was continuing to scream at her to _try_, just _try _to stay tethered, at least turn away from the doorway. Martha inched, on her elbows and knees, away from the broken doorway, but then she tried to stand up and cross the room. She thought she could grab onto Rose's rope and pull her back, turn her around. _She_ wasn't being sucked in by the void, she might as well take advantage of that fact, even though the TARDIS _was_ being pulled and it was not steady.

But a wooden wine barrel, one of the last pieces of debris to be dislodged from the TARDIS' floor, came flying through the centre of the room. It hit the column of light that housed part of the TARDIS' consciousness, and the rotting wood exploded apart into all its individual slats, and one of them struck Rose in the back of the head before being pulled out the door into the void. The incident caused Martha to lose her footing and to topple once again to the floor. Rose's eyes closed lazily, and now her body was limp against the tug of darkness.

When the last piece of void-contaminated junk was out the door, the void was still pulling. The particles it had taken from the TARDIS had not been enough to spackle the hole. Martha could see that it was also still tugging pieces of debris from elsewhere, in particular, from the ground below. She dared to hope that no human beings had spent enough time below the leak to be attractive to the void.

"Doctor! We have to stop it!" Martha cried out.

"Hold onto something!" he cried back.

He pulled himself along the console and reached out for a control. Martha took a firm grip on one of the handrails and watched to see what he'd do next. The TARDIS made a loud, high-pitched noise she had never heard before, and then suddenly, out the door, she could see blue rings, red rings, flying past at what felt like a million miles per hour. The sound was deafening, and if she'd had both hands, she would have covered her ears against the awful ripping noise. She could work out, without being told, that they were ripping through time and space somehow in a way that was unnatural for the TARDIS.

After an eternity the sound stopped and the TARDIS was parked. Outside, it looked to be Victorian London, only daylight suddenly.

"Martha, look outside," he told her, trying to untie himself from the console. "Look up. Can you see anything being sucked in?"

She dashed to the door and looked. "No," she said. "It seems to be closed."

He came up behind her and put his arm around her. "Good. We fooled it."

"Fooled it?"

"All those particles weren't enough, the rift needed more. So we fed it ourselves. In particular, we gave it the TARDIS and Rose (she's riddled with void stuff), but ripped through it before it could pull us all in properly."

Martha laughed nervously. "That's a pretty risky trick!"

"More fun that way," he muttered. "Trouble is, now I think we're on the wrong side."

Passers-by looked at them strangely, as they were standing in the doorway of a blue box without a door. "Er, what are we going to do about this door situation?" she asked.

"The TARDIS will eventually grow a new one," he told her, shrugging. "Give her a day or two."

He turned and looked. Rose was lying on the floor on her side, unconscious.


	15. Chapter 15

**_SORRY FOR THE LONG GAP BETWEEN POSTINGS. IT'S BEEN A WEIRD WEEK - NO FEWER THAN FIVE FAMILY MEMBERS (INCLUDING MYSELF) HAVE HAD TRIPS TO THE HOSPITAL, AND A SIXTH FELL DOWN THE STAIRS! IF I DIDN'T KNOW BETTER, I'D SAY THERE WAS A HEX ON US._**

**_THIS IS WHERE THE STORY WINDS DOWN - AGAIN, IT'S QUITE TALKY, NOT SO MUCH WITH THE ACTION. AND, THIS IS THE PENULTIMATE CHAPTER! WITH ANY LUCK, I'LL HAVE THE FINAL INSTALLMENT POSTED TOMORROW MORNING AND WE'LL ALL HAVE SOME CLOSURE! ENJOY._**

* * *

FIFTEEN

Rose sat in the TARDIS' infirmary with her head down. The world was still spinning a bit, but mercifully, she couldn't feel anything of what was going on behind her. She swooned again. "Whoa," she exclaimed, grabbing onto the bars on the side of the exam table.

"If you're dizzy, keep your eyes closed and keep hanging on," Martha told her. "It's no good if you fall off and injure something else."

Rose nodded subtly and closed her eyes as instructed. "How many stitches are you giving me?"

"Four, if I can manage it," Martha answered. "Possibly five."

Rose had a gash in the back of her head and the appropriate resulting concussion. She really should be lying down, but sitting up minimised the bleeding and made Martha's job easier and quicker. She'd been shot with enough Cortisone to render her insensible to all the stitching, but also to make the dizziness worse.

Finally, the stitches were in, tied off, and Martha felt satisfied that she had done her best. She had done plenty of stitching in her surgical rotation, but she had never closed up someone's head this way, and certainly not while they were awake. Rose made a good patient, however. Aside from the dizziness, she hardly moved.

"Lie down on your side," Martha told her. "Don't disturb the stitches. I'll be right back."

Martha went down several corridors and tried to remember the route. Long ago, the Doctor had shown her the medical facilities inside the TARDIS. It wasn't like being in a hospital, but the drug cabinet was a thing to be reckoned with. He had organised all of the different medications by species, and within that, by affliction. He'd thought that she'd like to know where all the human medications were hiding, just in case she needed to treat someone in their travels.

Martha selected two painkillers, one intravenous and one oral. She sterilised a syringe with a bunsen burner, and took them back to the infirmary where Rose was lying. When she arrived, the Doctor was sitting on a stool at her side, holding her hand. For a few moments, Martha just stood in the doorway and watched.

"…once it grows strong enough, then we should be able to get back," he was saying to her. Rose didn't seem to respond. "The energy from _our_ universe will cloak us when we cross the void, since we don't have the element of surprise this time. Then, you'll need a few days to convalesce…"

With that, Rose burst into tears.

The Doctor looked up at Martha with an imploring expression. He shrugged worriedly, and mouthed the words, "What'd I say?"

Martha didn't answer, but simply moved forward to tend to her patient. The Doctor followed her lead and just began to stroke Rose's hair while Martha prepared the medicine.

Rose wept into the sterile white pillow, and Martha quickly injected the liquid into Rose's arm.

"What's wrong, Rose?" the Doctor asked. "I'm sorry that I upset you."

Rose pulled herself under control, and whimpered, "I'm just so tired."

Her tone brought tears to Martha's eyes. She could only imagine how badly Rose probably just wanted to rest.

"I'm tired of all of it," Rose sobbed. "I'm tired of hearing about voids and particles and energy and vortexes. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of running – I just…" she lost her grip for a few moments and continued crying. Her whole body heaved with the weight of her sobs, and the Doctor and Martha just watched helplessly. Finally, she managed to choke out, "I just want to go home!"

The Doctor looked at Martha. They had both known that the question would eventually arise, of what they would do with Rose once this was all over. They knew that as things stood, relationships being what they were, the three of them couldn't really travel together. But they both also had thought that a life in stasis would never be enough for Rose, that if she could strike out across the stars with the Doctor, she would and should.

And now, their question had been answered. Martha should have felt relief, but she didn't. There had been a time when Martha had felt in competition with Rose, and a time when she would have felt vindicated to have "won." But no one could have anticipated a situation like this, and she didn't want to "win" this way.

"Are you sure?" the Doctor asked Rose softly.

She wiped her tears and said, "I just want to see my mum."

"All right." Sadly, he got up and left the room. In less than a minute, the girls felt the TARDIS moving and heard its gears grinding.

Rose asked, "Can I have a shower with these stitches?"

"Why don't you let me help you wash your hair in a sink, and then we can put a cap on you, and you can have a shower."

"Okay, thanks. I just don't want my mum to see me like this."

* * *

Rose had whimpered softly the entire time Martha was washing her hair. Martha suspected it was a combination of pain and sheer emotional exhaustion. The Doctor stayed away – she figured he was off sulking somewhere, inwardly torturing himself over Rose once again, knowing that he was the reason she was so tired.

Later, Martha laid a pair of her jeans and a blue long-sleeved v-neck on the bed that she used to sleep in. Rose was in the adjacent shower, and Martha had promised her that she'd find her some more fresh clothes.

She wandered back into the control room and the Doctor was leaning against the console talking to someone. A very pregnant blonde woman in a pink and grey track suit sat in the navigator's chair. She turned and looked at Martha.

"Hello, love," she said. She had a high-pitched cockney which, under normal circumstances, would have made Martha cringe. "You must be Martha."

"You must be Rose's mum?" Martha said, smiling tiredly.

"How'd you guess? I'm Jackie Tyler," she answered.

They shook hands. "Has the Doctor filled you in?" Martha asked her.

"Yes, about the void, and being taken care of by the nuns…"

The Doctor chimed in. "But I wasn't sure about the situation with her head injury. I left that for you to explain."

"Nothing major, just concussion," Martha said. "I stitched her up, but she needs to rest for the next couple of days. She'll be sensitive to light and loud noises, so keep her someplace dark, quiet and cool. The stitches should be taken out by a professional in about three weeks. Just tell them she was injured abroad and a foreign doctor gave her the stitches, and they shouldn't give you any trouble."

"What happened to her that's she's got concussion?"

Martha glanced at the Doctor. "Long story. Wine barrel split apart and a section of it hit her in the back of the head. I gave her a painkiller."

"Are you a nurse?"

"Medical student. Six months out."

"Okay, then. Where is she now?"

"She's in the shower," Martha said. "She didn't want you to see her in the state she was in."

Jackie nodded without saying anything, and Martha guessed that she was holding back from crying. The Doctor helped her climb back onto the stool, and the three of them remained in silence for the time being.

Finally, Martha asked, "When are you due?"

"Another six weeks," Jackie said, smiling, happy to think about something other than Rose's dire condition. "If it's a boy, Mickey's pushing for us to name it after him."

The Doctor feigned pain and sucked air in through his teeth. "Ooh, please don't do that."

"No," Jackie laughed. "If it's a boy, we'll call him Anthony. If it's a girl, Lily. Rose and Lily – wouldn't that be lovely?"

The Doctor smiled. "Lovely, yes. I'm so glad that you and Pete found each other again."

"We had a wedding last month," she said, still smiling. While smiling, Martha noticed, her cheeks were chubby and cheerful. "Even though we were already legally married in this world. I wanted it to be real."

Martha looked askance at the Doctor. "I'll tell you the whole story later," he told her. She nodded.

"Hi mum," a voice said from the doorway. Jackie was on her feet in a nanosecond, but when she and her daughter saw each other, they were both stopped in their tracks. "You're huge!" Rose exclaimed.

"You're skin and bones!" her mum responded.

They walked towards each other and embraced. Both of them cried.

"I missed you, mum," Rose sobbed into her mother's shoulder.

"I missed you too, sweetheart," Jackie said. "I thought I'd never see you again."

They collapsed into each other and said many things that were unintelligible to the Doctor and Martha. He took her hand and they exited the TARDIS to give the mother and daughter their moment. He leaned against the wooden box and Martha leaned against him. He put his arms around her and sighed heavily. She could see that they were parked on a large estate near a mansion with gardens and servants.

"I thought you said Rose was from the council estates," Martha commented into his chest.

"In our world, she was," he answered. "This is the other side of the void, a parallel world. In this world, Rose's dad didn't die in 1987 like he did in our world. He invented something and became filthy rich."

"And developed a dimensional jumper?"

"Developed it, yes. That's a good word. He lent money to the cause."

"So are there two Roses here?"

"In this world, Jackie and Pete Tyler never had children, and Jackie became a Cyberman," he explained. "_This _Jackie, the one you just met, is from our world. She lost her Pete long ago."

"So the man who tried to rescue Rose is actually from a different world," Martha said. "He probably doesn't even feel like her father."

"That's true," he conceded. "It was a huge point of contention between that Pete and this Jackie before Rose got..."

"Lost."

"Yeah," he said, his voice catching.

She heard it, and looked up. "Don't do that. She has told you it's not your fault. We saved her from the feral state, and she'll be with her family now."

"I know," he said. "But worrying. It's what I do."

"Well, save it for another day. Rose is safe, okay?"

He smiled. "Okay." He dipped his head and kissed her, and she kissed back. They lingered a bit, happy to have their first calm moment in days.

The TARDIS door opened and Jackie stuck her head out and saw the two of them wrapped around each other. "Oh, I get it," she said.

"Hi Jackie," the Doctor said, letting go of Martha, an apologetic tone in his voice.

"No, it's okay," Jackie insisted. "Anything that keeps my daughter at home. And _that's_ sure to do it."

They both stepped out of the TARDIS, and Rose said, "Mum, stop it. Leave them alone."

Martha extracted another bottle of medicine from her pocket. "This can be taken orally," she told Rose. "One tablet whenever you feel pain – should be every six hours or so."

"Thanks," Rose said. "I mean, for everything. Thanks for sitting with me at the convent, thanks for making me chips, stitching up my head, giving me your clothes again..."

"It's okay," Martha said, waving off her thanks. "It's my job."

"And Doctor," Rose said, turning stiffly toward the man in the suit. "Thank you, also. You've given me more than I could have hoped for just by coming into my life."

"Rose, I can't..."

"Whatever you're going to say, just save it. I probably already know it. No apology, no long goodbye, no second-guessing. Just tell me that I've meant a lot to you and that you want me to be happy."

He sighed, fighting back tears for what seemed like the billionth time in three days. "You_ have _meant a lot to me, Rose. More than you may ever know. And you _should_ be happy – you're the most deserving person I can think of."

And then he stepped forward and began to put his arms out to her. She stepped backward, startling him. She said nothing more, but allowed her mother to lead her away.

As they approached the house, they heard Jackie say, "Blimey, let's get some bangers and mash into you. Didn't they feed you at that convent?"

Neither Rose nor Jackie looked back before entering the house, and the Doctor and Martha leaned against each other and both sadly returned to the comfy interior of the TARDIS.

* * *

They still had twenty-four hours to wait before they could go back to their own universe, so they parked the TARDIS atop the Dover cliffs in Pete's World and from the observatory, watched the ships pass. Of course, they used their time alone together very wisely, and in the haze of lovers simmering after the boil dying down, Martha reminded him that they hadn't paid for their room at the Voyager's Repose.

"When we get back to our own world, we can do that, and say goodbye to Luke and the nuns and the kids."

"It's too bad we can't take Luke with us," she said. "He'd love this."

The Doctor stole a jealous glance at her. "I don't think any of us is ready for that."

She had completely missed his meaning, and simply sighed, closing her eyes against his chest. In time, both were asleep.


	16. Chapter 16

**THIS IS IT, THE END. BEFORE READING, ****PLEASE RECALL THAT IN MY STORY, THE SCENE FROM 'DOOMSDAY' ON BAD WOLF BAY IS A NIGHTMARE OF THE DOCTOR'S, SOMETHING HIS MIND DOES TO TORMENT HIM, BUT IT NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED. ****YOU'LL FIND THE PARALLEL CHAPTER IS EIGHT, JUST IN CASE YOU'D LIKE TO REFER BACK. **

**THANK YOU FOR READING! YOU ARE A SPECTACULAR AUDIENCE, AS ALWAYS!**

* * *

EPILOGUE

It had not been long since last he'd been here. Though Martha Jones had been occupying most of this space in his mind recently, especially during then night when it mattered most, this particular wound had lately been torn open and laid bare, and suddenly this was a familiar sight again.

But the chain of events went slightly differently than he remembered.

Rose stared at the sea, watched the tides roll in. Something was drawing her here, as though this was where she belonged. This was not the environment he had envisioned for her, but it would do. After a timeless, weightless, senseless oblivion, she had managed to find a haven here, and whatever her fate stored, it was none of his concern now.

And then she saw him. They were little more than spectres to one another, their forms were touchless, much as they had always been. He was here, but he was not. This couldn't be real, but it was something.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"Inside the TARDIS. There's one tiny little gap left, just about to close. It takes a lot of power to send this projection – I'm in orbit around a supernova. I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye."

This would be the point where she would reach out and try to touch him, and he would tell her that he's just an image, no contact was possible. Then he would tell her that if he came through properly, two universes would collapse, and she would imply that it would be worth it just for one more touch.

But they seemed to skip this part. Instead, Rose sighed, and asked evenly, "How long have we got?"

"About two minutes."

The ensuing conversation varied. Usually it was everyday stuff: working in a shop. Babies. Home. Defender of the universe, missing persons, blah blah blah.

Today, she told him, "I never had a chance to thank Sister Micheline."

"I'll tell her."

"The Monsignor scolded her for putting me in that stable. Please let her know that I understand she had no choice."

"I will absolve her personally," he said, thinking of the Church and forgiveness and how far removed he was from all of that.

"And yourself? Will you absolve yourself?"

He broke eye contact for a moment, then sighed. "Should I?"

"Yes. For the millionth time, yes."

Again, he sighed. Then he looked her in the eye quite earnestly and nodded.

"Good," she said.

And this was the part he sometimes relished, sometimes hated, depending. Suddenly her body would grow tight with sobbing, convulsing with the pain of it.

But not this time. "Am I ever going to see you again?" Her tone was sad, but accepting of the difficult answer that she must have known was coming.

"You can't," he told her. And it was the truth, for so many reasons.

"What are you going to do?"

"I've got the TARDIS. Same old life, last of the Time Lords."

"On your own?"

He had never been able to answer this question before, but this time, he did, not knowing where it would lead. "With Martha."

Usually, from here she continued to sob, still in violent tremors that kept her grief in a tight little ball. But now, she seemed to calm, and even smile a bit. She was glad that her friend would be taken care of, that he would not be lonely nor wanting. The words came easily, as though she were at peace, "I love you."

"Quite right too," he whispered, his voice heavy with emotion. And then his tone cleared, and he returned the peaceful smile that she gave him. "And I suppose, if it's my last chance to say it, Rose Tyler, I love you too."

There it was, plain as day. He had not faded from the beach at the wrong moment. She had not been taken by the tide, he had not been consumed by the supernova. It had been four words, in English, unequivocal.

And it was goodbye.

His mind was finally letting her go, and letting him rest.

And when he woke, he was no longer alone.

**END**


End file.
